Re: Should Bush resign???
Bobby D. Bryant
> NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
People on a mission from God don't resign.
--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
dkomo
>
> NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
>
Depends on whether the above story is true. Personally, I trust our
sensationalistic reality-warping American media about as much as I
trust our government.
AC
DJ Lee <liber...@aol.com> wrote:
> NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
>
> CHECK OUT www.thelivingliberal.com
The bloody election is in November, for goodness sake. The only thing worse
than Bush hanging on until then is Bush creating a constitutional crisis by
stepping down and putting Dick Cheney in charge.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Bobby D. Bryant
Yeah, Rumsfeld might not want to give up control of his half of the puppet
strings.
John Wilkins
> On Sun, 16 May 2004 14:26:47 +0000, DJ Lee wrote:
>
> > NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
>
> People on a mission from God don't resign.
Inevitably, then, he will be martyred...
at least that is how the supporters will report it.
--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au
"I never meet anyone who is not perplexed what to do with their
children" --Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February 22, 1857
Stanley Friesen
>Bobby D. Bryant <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 16 May 2004 14:26:47 +0000, DJ Lee wrote:
>>
>> > NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
>>
>> People on a mission from God don't resign.
>
>Inevitably, then, he will be martyred...
>
>at least that is how the supporters will report it.
I would much prefer it be done legally.
The peace of God be with you.
Stanley Friesen
Stanley Friesen
>On Sun, 16 May 2004 14:26:47 +0000, DJ Lee wrote:
>
>> NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
>
>People on a mission from God don't resign.
Ergo, he should be impeached.
Stanley Friesen
>John Dean, in "Worse than Watergate," warns if Cheney dies *Bush* will
>be in charge!
I really do need to read that book. I have heard good reviews of it.
John Wilkins
> "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> >On Sun, 16 May 2004 14:26:47 +0000, DJ Lee wrote:
> >
> >> NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
> >
> >People on a mission from God don't resign.
>
> Ergo, he should be impeached.
>
I just received in email, a bumper sticker that said "No one died when
*Clinton* lied"...
Richard Uhrich
Of all the Bush bashing books I've read, I recommend this one. He
doesn't tie it into a neat story or theory, but he definitely has
insight into the "win at all cost; take no prisoners; get the political
'enemies'" mentality.
--
Richard Uhrich
"Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to
destabilize their country, and we will help them rid Iraq of these
killers." --- Bush to Al Arabiya TV
Richard Uhrich
> Stanley Friesen <sar...@friesen.net> wrote:
>
>
>>"Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Sun, 16 May 2004 14:26:47 +0000, DJ Lee wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
>>>
>>>People on a mission from God don't resign.
>>
>>Ergo, he should be impeached.
>>
>
> I just received in email, a bumper sticker that said "No one died when
> *Clinton* lied"...
http://www.noonedied.com click on "war president" or
http://www.noonedied.com/war_president.htm
Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
John Wilkins wrote:
| Stanley Friesen <sar...@friesen.net> wrote:
|
|
|>"Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
|>
|>
|>>On Sun, 16 May 2004 14:26:47 +0000, DJ Lee wrote:
|>>
|>>
|>>>NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
|>>
|>>People on a mission from God don't resign.
|>
|>Ergo, he should be impeached.
|>
|
| I just received in email, a bumper sticker that said "No one died when
| *Clinton* lied"...
....unless you count the 500,000 Iraqis that died as the result of the
sanctions during Clinton's administration. Yknow, the ones that were
there because of the "lie" that Iraq still had WMD's and was violating
the ceasefire agreements?
(Hint: If you're going to claim that the WMD story was a lie, it might
help to know where the information originated. If the information was a
lie, and the lie went all the way to the top, that wasn't Bush's lie (at
least, not Bush *II*'s lie). It might also help to know who killed the
most Iraqis.)
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AC
Stanley Friesen <sar...@friesen.net> wrote:
> "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 16 May 2004 14:26:47 +0000, DJ Lee wrote:
>>
>>> NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
>>
>>People on a mission from God don't resign.
>
> Ergo, he should be impeached.
I'd say the odds of that happening are about the same as a suitcase with ten
million dollars inside dropping in my lap. This close to the election, I
would think energies would be better spent putting down Bush and Nader, and
trying to convince your neighbors that the arrogant pr*ck the Democrats have
selected will still be a lot better than the bad chimpanzee imitator
currently occupying the Oval Office.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
John Wilkins
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> John Wilkins wrote:
>
> | Stanley Friesen <sar...@friesen.net> wrote:
> |
> |
> |>"Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> |>
> |>
> |>>On Sun, 16 May 2004 14:26:47 +0000, DJ Lee wrote:
> |>>
> |>>
> |>>>NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
> |>>
> |>>People on a mission from God don't resign.
> |>
> |>Ergo, he should be impeached.
> |>
> |
> | I just received in email, a bumper sticker that said "No one died when
> | *Clinton* lied"...
>
> ....unless you count the 500,000 Iraqis that died as the result of the
> sanctions during Clinton's administration. Yknow, the ones that were
> there because of the "lie" that Iraq still had WMD's and was violating
> the ceasefire agreements?
Which it did until about two or three years ago or so, under UN
direction to destroy them. Saddam's error was to play the "have we or
haven't we?" game, presumably to discourage Iran and the Kurds. Also,
IIRC, the sanctions were imposed by Bush I and the rest of the UN
security council, weren't they?
>
> (Hint: If you're going to claim that the WMD story was a lie, it might
> help to know where the information originated. If the information was a
> lie, and the lie went all the way to the top, that wasn't Bush's lie (at
> least, not Bush *II*'s lie). It might also help to know who killed the
> most Iraqis.)
I have no idea what these mean.
By the way, I'm not American. But what Bush II did with my government's
support has jeopardised my country, and made us look worse in the eyes
of other nations. I have a stake in it.
Richard Uhrich
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> John Wilkins wrote:
>
> | Stanley Friesen <sar...@friesen.net> wrote:
> |
> |
> |>"Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> |>
> |>
> |>>On Sun, 16 May 2004 14:26:47 +0000, DJ Lee wrote:
> |>>
> |>>
> |>>>NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
> |>>
> |>>People on a mission from God don't resign.
> |>
> |>Ergo, he should be impeached.
> |>
> |
> | I just received in email, a bumper sticker that said "No one died when
> | *Clinton* lied"...
>
> ....unless you count the 500,000 Iraqis that died as the result of the
> sanctions during Clinton's administration. Yknow, the ones that were
> there because of the "lie" that Iraq still had WMD's and was violating
> the ceasefire agreements?
>
> (Hint: If you're going to claim that the WMD story was a lie, it might
> help to know where the information originated. If the information was a
> lie, and the lie went all the way to the top, that wasn't Bush's lie (at
> least, not Bush *II*'s lie). It might also help to know who killed the
> most Iraqis.)
>
Even U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans Blix believed Saddam's "Beware of Dog"
sign was real, until he finally was allowed in. 8Ironically, because of
the war threat, Blix was permitted enough access to see there prrobably
were no weapons. But Bush continued to use weak, discredited evidence
(lies) to support his desire for war. The U.N. was kicked out by Bush
just as inspections were nearing a conclusion of no WMD.
Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
John Wilkins wrote:
| Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
|
|
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|>John Wilkins wrote:
|>
|>| Stanley Friesen <sar...@friesen.net> wrote:
|>|
|>|
|>|>"Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
|>|>
|>|>
|>|>>On Sun, 16 May 2004 14:26:47 +0000, DJ Lee wrote:
|>|>>
|>|>>
|>|>>>NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
|>|>>
|>|>>People on a mission from God don't resign.
|>|>
|>|>Ergo, he should be impeached.
|>|>
|>|
|>| I just received in email, a bumper sticker that said "No one died when
|>| *Clinton* lied"...
|>
|>....unless you count the 500,000 Iraqis that died as the result of the
|>sanctions during Clinton's administration. Yknow, the ones that were
|>there because of the "lie" that Iraq still had WMD's and was violating
|>the ceasefire agreements?
|
|
| Which it did until about two or three years ago or so, under UN
| direction to destroy them. Saddam's error was to play the "have we or
| haven't we?" game, presumably to discourage Iran and the Kurds. Also,
| IIRC, the sanctions were imposed by Bush I and the rest of the UN
| security council, weren't they?
|
Yes, Bush I put the sanctions in, but both he and Clinton could have
removed them, if they thought there were no WMD's. The point is that
Clinton came to the same conclusion Bush did, and he did so with the
benefit of *more* intelligence, because we still had inspectors in the
country at the time.
|>(Hint: If you're going to claim that the WMD story was a lie, it might
|>help to know where the information originated. If the information was a
|>lie, and the lie went all the way to the top, that wasn't Bush's lie (at
|>least, not Bush *II*'s lie). It might also help to know who killed the
|>most Iraqis.)
|
|
| I have no idea what these mean.
|
It simply means that the intelligence the Bush administration was
working with was the same intelligence the other administrations had.
The difference was that Bush was dealing with the fact that the same
situation had been going on for 12 years.
| By the way, I'm not American. But what Bush II did with my government's
| support has jeopardised my country, and made us look worse in the eyes
| of other nations. I have a stake in it.
What Bush has done will eventually make the world safer, because it will
bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
becoming a black hole for arms. But yes, it's admittedly a mess right now.
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Stanley Friesen
>
>It simply means that the intelligence the Bush administration was
>working with was the same intelligence the other administrations had.
No it wasn't. The detail reports available to the Shrub had deep
reservations about the continued existence of WMDs. He chose to ignore
those questions.
>
>What Bush has done will eventually make the world safer, because it will
>bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
>becoming a black hole for arms.
I have yet to see any evidence that any stable government will be formed
there by the Shrub's policies. So long as the three factions each
insist *they* should be in charge and consider the others lesser
citizens, there is no hope of a stable government. And I see no chance
of that changing in this decade.
Richard Uhrich
Wrong! In the Clinton years, we did not have "unfettered" access for
U.N. inspectors. That's why we left in '98, followed by Desert Storm.
Bush had two things Clinton didn't: unfettered access by Blix, and the
lies of Chalibi. In his fervor, he ignored the truth and touted the lies.
>
> | By the way, I'm not American. But what Bush II did with my government's
> | support has jeopardised my country, and made us look worse in the eyes
> | of other nations. I have a stake in it.
>
> What Bush has done will eventually make the world safer, because it will
> bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
> becoming a black hole for arms. But yes, it's admittedly a mess right now.
Mess? What an understatement! You want a safer world, consider a *real*
threat, like N. Korea. Responsible government? Like Saudi Arabia? Sudan?
>
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Richard Uhrich
> Wrong! In the Clinton years, we did not have "unfettered" access for
> U.N. inspectors. That's why we left in '98, followed by Desert Storm.
Sorry, Dessert *Fox*
Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
Stanley Friesen wrote:
| Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
|
|>It simply means that the intelligence the Bush administration was
|>working with was the same intelligence the other administrations had.
|
|
| No it wasn't. The detail reports available to the Shrub had deep
| reservations about the continued existence of WMDs. He chose to ignore
| those questions.
|
The intelligence was the same, because there were no avenues for new
intelligence after the inspectors left under Clinton. What changed was
the reaction to that intelligence. Bush waged a war based on the
intelligence, while Clinton only launched missile strikes.
|>What Bush has done will eventually make the world safer, because it will
|>bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
|>becoming a black hole for arms.
|
|
| I have yet to see any evidence that any stable government will be formed
| there by the Shrub's policies. So long as the three factions each
| insist *they* should be in charge and consider the others lesser
| citizens, there is no hope of a stable government. And I see no chance
| of that changing in this decade.
Just because you have 3 warring factions doesn't mean a stable
government can't be formed. Many nations have coalition governments
based on antagonistic factions. Of course, the word "stable" is
relative. It doesn't mecessarily mean that power doesn't change hands
regularly. It just means it happens at the ballot box, rather than at
the point of a gun. Ironically, one of the things the occupation might
have done is to give the Iraqis a national identity they didn't have
pre-war. (Not great timing, from our perspective, but it might help in
the long run.) Ultimately, the Iraqis will get whatever kind of
government they choose. The US can't babysit Iraq forever. The
important point, though, is that it will be a government of the
majority's choosing, with protections built-in for the minorities.
There's no reason to think that that can't happen, unless you take the
position that the Iraqis are somehow genetically incapable of it. AFter
all, how more different is the Iraq of today than the U.S. of the
1860's? While the U.S. needed a civil war, the occupation might serve
as the uniting force that the U.S. didn't have at the time.
| The peace of God be with you.
|
| Stanley Friesen
|
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John Thomas Grisham
> NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
>
Should the Supreme Court resign for circumventing the 2000 election
process and denying Florida's legislature their Constitutional Right
to select their electorial college delegates or fail to select them
(which was the greater fear)?
Bush is president because the Supreme Court selected him and that
differs significantly from being elected, because it is "ordained" by
the most highest and irrefutable authority in the country (the Supreme
Court). Bush could resign if he'd been elected, because "the Will of
the People" hasn't really been worth a pound of beans, since the Civil
War. The two-party system insures that such "will" is almost
completely futile (Neither party is interested in what the people
"will"). But if Bush were to resign after being "selected" by the
Supreme Court, it would mean that the judgement of the Supreme Court
was wrong!... This isn't the man who should be president, by his own
admission.
If the Supremes are wrong about Bush, then what else have they been
wrong about? After all, they were all lawyers in the first place.
There is reason enough to suggest that lawyers are untrustworthy (they
don't need a formal education... all they must do is pass "the Bar"
test). Frankly, Charles Manson could have been a lawyer, if he'd
applied himself! These are the people, we trust? Maybe we should
reevaluate what kind of people we want judging us?
To underscore the feeling of desperation in the country, Andy Rooney
on "60 Minutes" last night suggested that the government should form
an advisory body of college "Phd" professors to issue public
statements as to the coming decisions that the President and Congress
are going to make. It wouldn't bind the President or Congress, it
would just reassure us that at least some "smart people" (in his
words) have considered it, beforehand. The inference is that there is
something seriously wrong with our political system and we need to do
something about it.
JTG 5/17/04
Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
Richard Uhrich wrote:
The inspectors had *much* better access than the Bush II administration
had. And Clinton had this information coming in from '92-'98. It was
Clinton who decided not to press the issue of inspections in 1998. By
the time Bush got in, we had Blix being led around by the Iraqis,
refusing to allow access to palaces, only giving real access in the few
months before the war. In short, the Iraqis were yanking our chain.
|> Bush had two things Clinton didn't: unfettered access by Blix, and the
|> lies of Chalibi. In his fervor, he ignored the truth and touted the
lies.
Blix did *not* have unfettered access. He himself complained about the
Iraqis dragging their feet in compliance. He himself made the comment
that the inspectiosn weren't supposed to be a "scavenger hunt", which is
what the Iraqis were subjecting him to. In the closing days before the
war, Iraq had started to move towards allowing more complete
inspections, but they were *still* being reluctant.
Just as an aside, today our troops got attacked by an IED containing
sarin. Y'know...one of the chemicals they said they didn't have.
|
|
| | By the way, I'm not American. But what Bush II did with my government's
| | support has jeopardised my country, and made us look worse in the eyes
| | of other nations. I have a stake in it.
|
| What Bush has done will eventually make the world safer, because it will
| bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
| becoming a black hole for arms. But yes, it's admittedly a mess right
now.
|
|
|> Mess? What an understatement! You want a safer world, consider a *real*
|> threat, like N. Korea. Responsible government? Like Saudi Arabia? Sudan?
|
We're dealing with the N. Korea threat. But you have to deal
differently with nations that already have nukes (which is why Hussein
wanted us to believe he had WMDs). Different threat levels call for
different actions.
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AC
Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Stanley Friesen wrote:
>| Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
>|
>|>It simply means that the intelligence the Bush administration was
>|>working with was the same intelligence the other administrations had.
>|
>|
>| No it wasn't. The detail reports available to the Shrub had deep
>| reservations about the continued existence of WMDs. He chose to ignore
>| those questions.
>|
>
> The intelligence was the same, because there were no avenues for new
> intelligence after the inspectors left under Clinton. What changed was
> the reaction to that intelligence. Bush waged a war based on the
> intelligence, while Clinton only launched missile strikes.
Considering the quality of the intelligence, I think Clinton was the wiser
man. I do fault Clinton for not going after bin Laden, however.
>
>|>What Bush has done will eventually make the world safer, because it will
>|>bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
>|>becoming a black hole for arms.
>|
>|
>| I have yet to see any evidence that any stable government will be formed
>| there by the Shrub's policies. So long as the three factions each
>| insist *they* should be in charge and consider the others lesser
>| citizens, there is no hope of a stable government. And I see no chance
>| of that changing in this decade.
>
> Just because you have 3 warring factions doesn't mean a stable
> government can't be formed. Many nations have coalition governments
> based on antagonistic factions.
It really depends on the level of antagonism, and it also depends on what
you mean by "stable". Iraq under Hussein was stable, Yugoslavia was stable
under Tito.
>Of course, the word "stable" is
> relative. It doesn't mecessarily mean that power doesn't change hands
> regularly. It just means it happens at the ballot box, rather than at
> the point of a gun.
Democracy, unfortunately, requires a certain amount of political stability.
That doesn't mean that Italy isn't a stable country, as all concerned still
abide by the will of the voter.
> Ironically, one of the things the occupation might
> have done is to give the Iraqis a national identity they didn't have
> pre-war.
I see absolutely no sign of that.
>(Not great timing, from our perspective, but it might help in
> the long run.) Ultimately, the Iraqis will get whatever kind of
> government they choose.
And if that government is a perennially weak centralized government then
what? Well, I'll tell you what, it invites the strongest faction to put
forward a strongman who will "stabilize" Iraq by the application of force,
or, as you put it, the point of a gun.
> The US can't babysit Iraq forever.
No kidding.
> The
> important point, though, is that it will be a government of the
> majority's choosing, with protections built-in for the minorities.
Is there any reason, judging the current situation, then one can expect,
even if a constitution is enshrined, that it will be honored by the stronger
parties? You can't just shove people into democracy.
> There's no reason to think that that can't happen, unless you take the
> position that the Iraqis are somehow genetically incapable of it.
I'm sure Iraqis, in time, would be. The problem is that Iraq is an
artificial state, the product of early 20th century European imperialist
meddling.
>AFter
> all, how more different is the Iraq of today than the U.S. of the
> 1860's? While the U.S. needed a civil war, the occupation might serve
> as the uniting force that the U.S. didn't have at the time.
Other than the fact that both countries are at the brink of civil war, not
very darn much. Iraq has no history of real democracy.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Prayer Capsule Activation Event
the darkest depths of chaosnews:xoedne98373...@comcast.com:
> Just because you have 3 warring factions doesn't mean a stable
> government can't be formed.
I shall alert the media.
--
"I will cause underwater life to triumph over all other living
creatures."
--Blood Waters of Dr. Z.
AC
Prayer Capsule Activation Event <a...@at.org> wrote:
> Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> spewed forth most vilely from
> the darkest depths of chaosnews:xoedne98373...@comcast.com:
>
>> Just because you have 3 warring factions doesn't mean a stable
>> government can't be formed.
>
> I shall alert the media.
Perhaps someone should alert the factions.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
John Thomas Grisham
There's a difference?
What's not corporate owned and operated, doesn't do anything.
Oh, sorry! That's the definition of legistators.
JTG 5/17/04
R.Schenck
> NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
>
> CHECK OUT www.thelivingliberal.com
>
hold on, lemme get my shit proof umbrella before reading the responses...
mc...@prodigy.net
> liber...@aol.com (DJ Lee) wrote in message news:<a46d0f75.04051...@posting.google.com>...
> > NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
> >
> > CHECK OUT www.thelivingliberal.com
>
> Should the Supreme Court resign for circumventing the 2000 election
> process and denying Florida's legislature their Constitutional Right
> to select their electorial college delegates or fail to select them
> (which was the greater fear)?
What does that matter? Those electors would have surely been
disqualifed by the Senate.
> Bush is president because the Supreme Court selected him
Bush is president because the Florida Supreme Court allowed him to be
certified the winner of the state of Florida on 11/26/2000. Once that
was done, Bush held an advantage that no court could take away from
him.
The ONLY way Gore could have had ANY chance to win Florida was for
there to be a recount that would have satified 3 U.S.C. 5. IF the Gore
had a slate of electors that would have been seen by Congress to have
been appointed via a change in Florida election code, they could have
been disqualified, leaving the slate for Bush certified on 11/26.
dkomo
Who says Congress is not corporate owned and operated? Big Pharma and
Big Insurance, for example, give our legislators their marching orders
on everything related to health care and health insurance.
Ok, a really cynical point of view says that America is fast becoming
nothing but a collection of gigantic global corporations, with the
U.S. government and our formly esteemed 4th Estate being merely wholly
owned subsidiaries within that mix.
I wouldn't quite go that far.
But...
Bobby D. Bryant
> Just as an aside, today our troops got attacked by an IED containing
> sarin. Y'know...one of the chemicals they said they didn't have.
Hope springs eternal in Republican hearts...
--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Stanley Friesen
>| I have yet to see any evidence that any stable government will be formed
>| there by the Shrub's policies. So long as the three factions each
>| insist *they* should be in charge and consider the others lesser
>| citizens, there is no hope of a stable government. And I see no chance
>| of that changing in this decade.
>
>Just because you have 3 warring factions doesn't mean a stable
>government can't be formed. Many nations have coalition governments
>based on antagonistic factions. Of course, the word "stable" is
>relative. It doesn't mecessarily mean that power doesn't change hands
>regularly. It just means it happens at the ballot box, rather than at
>the point of a gun.
The problem is that many of the leaders of the rival factions would not
be willing to let the ballot box decide. The militants in all three
factions need to be neutralized before there can be any hope of a
peaceful solution. And The Shrub is not going about doing that in an
effective manner. The way things are going now his policies actually
appear to be *increasing* the number of militants, not weakening their
presence.
A solution such as that which worked in Lebanon until one faction
decided it wanted it all might be a viable approach, but it does not
even seem to be under consideration.
Short of that, only many years of careful teaching about the virtues of
tolerance will do any real good. This approach must be done
compassionately, in close association with rebuilding their economy to a
*better* place than it was before the war. Living together in peace
must be seen as a benefit to all, which means the benefits must be
*obvious*.
> Ironically, one of the things the occupation might
>have done is to give the Iraqis a national identity they didn't have
>pre-war. (Not great timing, from our perspective, but it might help in
>the long run.) Ultimately, the Iraqis will get whatever kind of
>government they choose. The US can't babysit Iraq forever.
True, but we could do so longer than we are planning to. Something
closer to what we did in Japan and Germany after WWII has more of a
chance to be effective than the current policies. But that takes time,
and a wiser governance policy. And trying it now would make us look
even *more* imperialistic than we already do - few would actually
believe we really intend to follow through at this point.
> The
>important point, though, is that it will be a government of the
>majority's choosing, with protections built-in for the minorities.
Only if the militants stop shooting everybody that disagrees with them.
There is no sign of that happening, as yet. Nor do The Shrub's policies
seem to be oriented in that direction.
>There's no reason to think that that can't happen, unless you take the
>position that the Iraqis are somehow genetically incapable of it.
No, not genetically. But they have deep, long standing cultural biases
against cooperation between rival factions. Such cultural biases do not
disappear in a few months. It takes decades, or even longer.
> AFter
>all, how more different is the Iraq of today than the U.S. of the
>1860's? While the U.S. needed a civil war, the occupation might serve
>as the uniting force that the U.S. didn't have at the time.
>
Actually, IMO, we didn't really need the civil war: it was the militants
on both sides that pushed the situation that direction. John Brown and
Quantrill have a great deal to do with what happened. (Note, both were
terrorists). Abolition was well on the way to becoming a reality
without the war - or it was until the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
It would have taken longer, but it might have left an economically
stronger South, among other benefits.
AC
Stanley Friesen <sar...@friesen.net> wrote:
> Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>position that the Iraqis are somehow genetically incapable of it.
>
> No, not genetically. But they have deep, long standing cultural biases
> against cooperation between rival factions. Such cultural biases do not
For a demonstration far closer to home, look at Europe. Like Iraq, it is
united by a common religion, and like Iraq that religion has sectarian
divisions. The moments when even a large part of the continent was united
was only via military might. Only after a series of increasingly
destructive wars culminating in WWII have Europeans managed to sit down and
try to come up with a long-term way of uniting the continent.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Richard Uhrich
This is bullshit. Clinton issued orders for Desert Fox. Colin Powell
talked Bush into the U.N. resolution that got Blix in. And it was
working, so Bush attacked.
>
> |> Bush had two things Clinton didn't: unfettered access by Blix, and the
> |> lies of Chalibi. In his fervor, he ignored the truth and touted the
> lies.
>
> Blix did *not* have unfettered access. He himself complained about the
> Iraqis dragging their feet in compliance. He himself made the comment
> that the inspectiosn weren't supposed to be a "scavenger hunt", which is
> what the Iraqis were subjecting him to. In the closing days before the
> war, Iraq had started to move towards allowing more complete
> inspections, but they were *still* being reluctant.
I have no idea where you get your information. You are contradicting
Blix's "Disarming Iraq." Blix was very pleased with the progress,
especially in the closing days. He is baffled and angry, as is most of
the world, that Bush would not let them have more time, then blatently
lied that Saddem hadn't even let iknspectors back..
>
> Just as an aside, today our troops got attacked by an IED containing
> sarin. Y'know...one of the chemicals they said they didn't have.
Yeah. Something totally unmarked and unknnown, left over from pre-Iraq
I. (We sold them the chemicals.) It demonstrates how sloppy their book
keeping was. Which was Blix's complaint. Too bad we had too few troops
to secure all weapons dumps; our soldiers would not be subject to these
IEDs.
>
>
> |
> |
> | | By the way, I'm not American. But what Bush II did with my government's
> | | support has jeopardised my country, and made us look worse in the eyes
> | | of other nations. I have a stake in it.
> |
> | What Bush has done will eventually make the world safer, because it will
> | bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
> | becoming a black hole for arms. But yes, it's admittedly a mess right
> now.
> |
> |
> |> Mess? What an understatement! You want a safer world, consider a *real*
> |> threat, like N. Korea. Responsible government? Like Saudi Arabia? Sudan?
> |
> We're dealing with the N. Korea threat. But you have to deal
> differently with nations that already have nukes (which is why Hussein
> wanted us to believe he had WMDs). Different threat levels call for
> different actions.
>
Dealing? How? N.Korea learned from Iraq: if you put up a "beware of
ddog" sign, have a dog. They've been makinng nukes like crazy since we
invaded Iraq..
Bigdakine
>From: "Bobby D. Bryant" bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu
>Date: 5/17/2004 8:51 PM Eastern Standard Time
>Message-id: <pan.2004.05.18....@mail.utexas.edu>
>
>On Mon, 17 May 2004 16:26:39 +0000, Brian Hartman wrote:
>
>> Just as an aside, today our troops got attacked by an IED containing
>> sarin. Y'know...one of the chemicals they said they didn't have.
>
>Hope springs eternal in Republican hearts...
>
LOL
Hey one artillery shell full of chemical weapons is a good reason to invade
another country, right?
Nevermind, that if it was an artillery shell packed with explosives, it might
of actually killed people.
There is little reason to doubt, that because the shell was unmarked, the
insurgents had no clue what it was, and are probably pissed as hell that it was
a dud.
Stuart
Dr. Stuart A. Weinstein
Ewa Beach Institute of Tectonics
"To err is human, but to really foul things up
requires a creationist"
Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
Bobby D. Bryant wrote:
| On Mon, 17 May 2004 16:26:39 +0000, Brian Hartman wrote:
|
|
|>Just as an aside, today our troops got attacked by an IED containing
|>sarin. Y'know...one of the chemicals they said they didn't have.
|
|
| Hope springs eternal in Republican hearts...
|
There doesn't seem to be much "hope" involved. Unless you take the
position that the sarin wasn't there (and the present evidence is
contrary to that position), then Iraq had weapons they specifically said
they didn't have, and were supposed to destroy.
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AC
Brian Hartman <bhar...@hush.com> wrote:
>
> Bobby D. Bryant wrote:
>| On Mon, 17 May 2004 16:26:39 +0000, Brian Hartman wrote:
>|
>|
>|>Just as an aside, today our troops got attacked by an IED containing
>|>sarin. Y'know...one of the chemicals they said they didn't have.
>|
>|
>| Hope springs eternal in Republican hearts...
>|
>
> There doesn't seem to be much "hope" involved. Unless you take the
> position that the sarin wasn't there (and the present evidence is
> contrary to that position), then Iraq had weapons they specifically said
> they didn't have, and were supposed to destroy.
Well there you go. The whole war is justified by a 155mm artillery shell
with sarin in it. Golly, I bet if we look really hard there's some goat
meat with E. coli in it too, and we'll have our biological WMD as well!
There's a point at which such positions just become absurd, and belong in an
episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus rather than as an attempt to
legitimize the invasion of a country.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
The inspections *weren't* reaching a conclusion of no WMD. The
inspectors were asking for more time, possibly months. That seems
unreasonable, given the fact that Iraq already had 12 years to comply.
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Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
AC wrote:
| On Mon, 17 May 2004 16:17:23 +0000 (UTC),
| Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
|
|>Stanley Friesen wrote:
|>| Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
|>|
|>|>It simply means that the intelligence the Bush administration was
|>|>working with was the same intelligence the other administrations had.
|>|
|>|
|>| No it wasn't. The detail reports available to the Shrub had deep
|>| reservations about the continued existence of WMDs. He chose to ignore
|>| those questions.
|>|
|>
|>The intelligence was the same, because there were no avenues for new
|>intelligence after the inspectors left under Clinton. What changed was
|>the reaction to that intelligence. Bush waged a war based on the
|>intelligence, while Clinton only launched missile strikes.
|
|
| Considering the quality of the intelligence, I think Clinton was the wiser
| man. I do fault Clinton for not going after bin Laden, however.
That's certainly a valid position, but it still leaves you in the same
place: Bush and Clinton both had the same information. Bush didn't
exaggerate it. He simply went with what he was provided with.
|
|
|>|>What Bush has done will eventually make the world safer, because it will
|>|>bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
|>|>becoming a black hole for arms.
|>|
|>|
|>| I have yet to see any evidence that any stable government will be formed
|>| there by the Shrub's policies. So long as the three factions each
|>| insist *they* should be in charge and consider the others lesser
|>| citizens, there is no hope of a stable government. And I see no chance
|>| of that changing in this decade.
|>
|>Just because you have 3 warring factions doesn't mean a stable
|>government can't be formed. Many nations have coalition governments
|>based on antagonistic factions.
|
|
| It really depends on the level of antagonism, and it also depends on what
| you mean by "stable". Iraq under Hussein was stable, Yugoslavia was
stable
| under Tito.
Well, that's where my "point of a gun" clause comes in. Obviously,
that's not the kind of "stable" that would be helpful for anyone
concerned. One would hope that the Iraqis in the majority would realize
they shouldn't use their majority as a cudgel, lest they throw the
country into chaos. It's possible, of course that Iraq becomes
balkanized and reverts to its ethnic states. As long as that's a
peaceful process, maybe there's no down-side.
|
|
|>Of course, the word "stable" is
|>relative. It doesn't mecessarily mean that power doesn't change hands
|>regularly. It just means it happens at the ballot box, rather than at
|>the point of a gun.
|
|
| Democracy, unfortunately, requires a certain amount of political
stability.
| That doesn't mean that Italy isn't a stable country, as all concerned
still
| abide by the will of the voter.
|
I'm not sure why you mention Italy here. Could you elaborate?
|
|> Ironically, one of the things the occupation might
|>have done is to give the Iraqis a national identity they didn't have
|>pre-war.
|
|
| I see absolutely no sign of that.
|
The Shiites and Sunnis seem to be uniting around the fact that they want
us out. There might even be cooperation between the two groups. (Not
necessarily a good thing for us, but there it is.)
|
|>(Not great timing, from our perspective, but it might help in
|>the long run.) Ultimately, the Iraqis will get whatever kind of
|>government they choose.
|
|
| And if that government is a perennially weak centralized government then
| what? Well, I'll tell you what, it invites the strongest faction to put
| forward a strongman who will "stabilize" Iraq by the application of force,
| or, as you put it, the point of a gun.
|
If Iraq goes to a weak centralized government, it will look more like
Afghanistan today than Germany in the 30's. You could substitute
Afghanistan for other tribalized countries. It's possible it goes
either way, but since for the past 30 or so years they've been one
country, I don't see why the people would necessarily want to separate.
~ There will assuredly be a power struggle, but there are power struggles
every day in the U.S. Again, the difference is how you settle these
struggles.
|
|> The US can't babysit Iraq forever.
|
|
| No kidding.
Well, it's not a flippant point. Some people think we want to stay
there and control the country. We don't want to do that. If we did, we
would've used a much heavier hand.
|
|
|>The
|>important point, though, is that it will be a government of the
|>majority's choosing, with protections built-in for the minorities.
|
|
| Is there any reason, judging the current situation, then one can expect,
| even if a constitution is enshrined, that it will be honored by the
stronger
| parties? You can't just shove people into democracy.
People will go with enlightened self-interest. Protecting minorities
works because it's always possible to find oneself in the minority
position in some way somewhere down the line. That's why freedom of
religion works in the U.S. While most Americans are at least nominally
Christians, they realize that protecting minorities protects everyone in
the end. It could be cultural bias on my part, but I don't see that as
a particularly hard lesson, especially to the Shiites who've been the
oppressed *majority* all the Hussein years.
|
|
|>There's no reason to think that that can't happen, unless you take the
|>position that the Iraqis are somehow genetically incapable of it.
|
|
| I'm sure Iraqis, in time, would be. The problem is that Iraq is an
| artificial state, the product of early 20th century European imperialist
| meddling.
Whether it stays in the form it's in right now is up in the air. I
wouldn't place money on that either way. But if it does fly apart, it
could either go like Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union. Having an elected
government to start with is at least a good begining.
|
|
|>AFter
|>all, how more different is the Iraq of today than the U.S. of the
|>1860's? While the U.S. needed a civil war, the occupation might serve
|>as the uniting force that the U.S. didn't have at the time.
|
|
| Other than the fact that both countries are at the brink of civil war, not
| very darn much. Iraq has no history of real democracy.
|
That's true. But then, < 1776, neither did we in the U.S. We were part
of a monarchy that did not give us proper representation. Sure, we had
experience with a constitution of sorts (under Great Britain's
government) but that was a far cry from true democracy. I mean, for
god's sake, they still had a king with real power! :)
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Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
Mark Isaak wrote:
| On Mon, 17 May 2004 03:12:32 +0000 (UTC), Brian Hartman
| <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
|
|
|>(Hint: If you're going to claim that the WMD story was a lie. . .
|
|
| The WMD story *was* a lie. The lie was that Iraq's WMDs were a threat
| to the United States.
Saddam's pilots were shooting at Americans on a regular basis. He was
continually in violation of sanctions. He had already committed a
terrorist act against the United States (trying to assassinate Bush I).
~ On top of all that, he was still in possession of missiles that could
threaten his neighbors, which would have drawn us into a wider war.
And, as has become evident today, they did *not* destroy all their
chemical weapons. Just because the Iraqi army couldn't land on the
Jersey shore doesn't mean Iraq wasn't a threat.
There is not the slightest doubt that Bush has
| killed orders of magnitude more Americans by sending them to Iraq than
| were ever under threat from Saddam's Iraq, even if Saddam had WMDs
| stockpiled.
|
| --
| Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
| "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
| the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
| being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
| exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
|
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Bobby D. Bryant
> Just because you have 3 warring factions doesn't mean a stable
> government can't be formed.
Just because that's true doesn't mean a stable government _can_ be formed.
Iraq is going to stay 'stable' exactly as long as someone is willing to
kill enough people to keep it that way.
Richard Uhrich
This is bullshit. Clinton issued orders for Desert Fox. Colin Powell
talked Bush into the U.N. resolution that got Blix in. And it was
working, so Bush attacked.
>
> |> Bush had two things Clinton didn't: unfettered access by Blix, and the
> |> lies of Chalibi. In his fervor, he ignored the truth and touted the
> lies.
>
> Blix did *not* have unfettered access. He himself complained about the
> Iraqis dragging their feet in compliance. He himself made the comment
> that the inspectiosn weren't supposed to be a "scavenger hunt", which is
> what the Iraqis were subjecting him to. In the closing days before the
> war, Iraq had started to move towards allowing more complete
> inspections, but they were *still* being reluctant.
I have no idea where you get your information. You are contradicting
Blix's "Disarming Iraq." Blix was very pleased with the progress,
especially in the closing days. He is baffled and angry, as is most of
the world, that Bush would not let them have more time, then blatently
lied that Saddem hadn't even let iknspectors back..
>
> Just as an aside, today our troops got attacked by an IED containing
> sarin. Y'know...one of the chemicals they said they didn't have.
Yeah. Something totally unmarked and unknnown, left over from pre-Iraq
I. (We sold them the chemicals.) It demonstrates how sloppy their book
keeping was. Which was Blix's complaint. Too bad we had too few troops
to secure all weapons dumps; our soldiers would not be subject to these
IEDs.
>
>
> |
> |
> | | By the way, I'm not American. But what Bush II did with my government's
> | | support has jeopardised my country, and made us look worse in the eyes
> | | of other nations. I have a stake in it.
> |
> | What Bush has done will eventually make the world safer, because it will
> | bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
> | becoming a black hole for arms. But yes, it's admittedly a mess right
> now.
> |
> |
> |> Mess? What an understatement! You want a safer world, consider a *real*
> |> threat, like N. Korea. Responsible government? Like Saudi Arabia? Sudan?
> |
> We're dealing with the N. Korea threat. But you have to deal
> differently with nations that already have nukes (which is why Hussein
> wanted us to believe he had WMDs). Different threat levels call for
> different actions.
>
Dealing? How? N.Korea learned from Iraq: if you put up a "beware of
ddog" sign, have a dog. They've been makinng nukes like crazy since we
invaded Iraq..
Booser
> NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
>
>
No, his Reign of Terror only has a few months left.
Stanley Friesen
>
>It really depends on the level of antagonism, and it also depends on what
>you mean by "stable".
Indeed. This reminds me of an example of how important *tradition* is
to the success of a democracy (or any other government). We here have a
long tradition of abiding by the outcome of a ballot - dating back to
*before* the continent was colonized (i.e. English traditions).
As my brother pointed out to me, we were insanely lucky to have George
Washington as our first President: a famous war hero who actually *did*
*not* *want* the position. Thus he *voluntarily* stepped down after two
terms, starting our tradition of voluntary relinquishing of power by the
President.
Richard Uhrich
> |
> The inspections *weren't* reaching a conclusion of no WMD. The
> inspectors were asking for more time, possibly months. That seems
> unreasonable, given the fact that Iraq already had 12 years to comply.
>
>
The fact there was no nuclear program was pretty well established. Blix
would have completed the U.N.'s work in a few months. That would have
nearly two years ago. He was finding Rumsfeld ('we know where they
are'), Cheney, Bush were full of shit, and gone home.
WHO WAS RIGHT?
Dissident
> Stanley Friesen <sar...@friesen.net> wrote:
>
>
>>"Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbr...@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>NEW REVELATIONS IN "THE NEW YORKER" REPORT; SHOULD BUSH RESIGN???
>>>
>>
>>Ergo, he should be impeached.
>>
>
> I just received in email, a bumper sticker that said "No one died when
> *Clinton* lied"...
Can I get a copy? My email agent's bumper needs decorating ...
John Wilkins
Email me, and I'll send you the email bumper-sized version..
Do you have the latest rubber baby buggy bumpers?
--
Dr John S. Wilkins, www.wilkins.id.au
"I never meet anyone who is not perplexed what to do with their
children" --Charles Darwin to Syms Covington, February 22, 1857
Steve the Sauropodman
Bush was demanding of the the U.N. weapons inspectors to "verify" that
Saddam had WMD. That was not the role of the U.N. inspection team.
Blix's position was that if the White House wanted incontrovertible
evidence then the inspectors needed more time, now that they had
access to Iraqi weapons depots. The Bush league was on a timetable
for an Iraqi invasion, and waiting another 6 months to a year would
have lost valuable political momentum and congressional funding. In
fact, the Bush admin. criticized Blix and company for their inability
to uncover the WMD, yet less that 6 months later, Rumsfeld was arguing
with the the US and world press that the US needed "...more time" to
uncover the alleged weapons.
Cheers
Stanley Friesen
>There doesn't seem to be much "hope" involved. Unless you take the
>position that the sarin wasn't there (and the present evidence is
>contrary to that position), then Iraq had weapons they specifically said
>they didn't have, and were supposed to destroy.
The present evidence seem to be that they didn't *know* they had it - it
had been lost. In other words it is not a matter of not complying so
much as a matter of keep horrid records.
And one shell hardly an arsenal makes.
Stanley Friesen
>
>Well, that's where my "point of a gun" clause comes in. Obviously,
>that's not the kind of "stable" that would be helpful for anyone
>concerned. One would hope that the Iraqis in the majority would realize
>they shouldn't use their majority as a cudgel, lest they throw the
>country into chaos.
Unfortunately, when religious fervor is involved, that sort of
realization is rare. History shows that religious majorities tend to
*strongly* suppress rival factions. It doesn't really matter if you are
talking Spanish Inquisition or Muslim Fundamentalists. Add to that a
cultural and ethic difference, and cooperation becomes a true rarity.
The situation in Iraq is remarkably similar to the situation in the
former nation of Yugoslavia. A similar result is likely.
> It's possible, of course that Iraq becomes
>balkanized and reverts to its ethnic states. As long as that's a
>peaceful process, maybe there's no down-side.
Except that, due to interpenetration of ethnic areas and the inevitable
oppression of the local minorities in each ethnic state, a peaceful
transition to that condition is almost impossible. Only a carefully
planned and monitored split managed by a neutral outside party has any
hope of accomplishing this peacefully. Unfortunately neither the UN nor
the US is currently contemplating such an action.
And to make matter worse, Turkey would almost certainly actively oppose
any attempt to create a Kurdish state, which could well destabilize any
such operation.
>|
>| I see absolutely no sign of that.
>|
>
>The Shiites and Sunnis seem to be uniting around the fact that they want
>us out.
This is more of a "we hate them worse than we hate each other" thing.
Once we are gone, if past history is any guide, they will return to
hating each other.
>| And if that government is a perennially weak centralized government then
>| what? Well, I'll tell you what, it invites the strongest faction to put
>| forward a strongman who will "stabilize" Iraq by the application of force,
>| or, as you put it, the point of a gun.
>|
>If Iraq goes to a weak centralized government, it will look more like
>Afghanistan today than Germany in the 30's. You could substitute
>Afghanistan for other tribalized countries. It's possible it goes
>either way, but since for the past 30 or so years they've been one
>country, I don't see why the people would necessarily want to separate.
>~ There will assuredly be a power struggle, but there are power struggles
>every day in the U.S. Again, the difference is how you settle these
>struggles.
The problem is that their long standing tradition is to "settle" them at
the point of a gun. It is that tradition that needs to be changed.
Changing a tradition takes a generation, at a minimum.
>| Is there any reason, judging the current situation, then one can expect,
>| even if a constitution is enshrined, that it will be honored by the stronger
>| parties? You can't just shove people into democracy.
>
>People will go with enlightened self-interest.
I wish I believed that. This only works when the people involved have
no emotionally charged axe to grind. Even here in the USA it is
amazingly rare - we just don't resort to violence as over such things as
readily.
> Protecting minorities
>works because it's always possible to find oneself in the minority
>position in some way somewhere down the line.
Unfortunately most people do not see that. Even here they do not - this
is why laws to protect minorities are so controversial here. And in
Iraq, since each faction believes they have a divine mandate to rule,
they will, naturally, believe that God himself will prevent them from
ever being in the subordinate position once they are in control.
> That's why freedom of
>religion works in the U.S. While most Americans are at least nominally
>Christians, they realize that protecting minorities protects everyone in
>the end. It could be cultural bias on my part, but I don't see that as
>a particularly hard lesson, especially to the Shiites who've been the
>oppressed *majority* all the Hussein years.
>
It is a very hard lesson. It took the colonies 100 years to even start
to learn it. And we were able to learn it largely because we inherited
the English tradition of freedom.
And even now there is a large and powerful faction here that wants to
remove most of those protections and establish a theocracy *here*.
Will the Shiites realize that tolerance is in their best interests?
Probably not. Historically the more common response has been
vengefulness against the former oppressors, oppressing them in turn.
The first French republic is a prime example of this - we call it the
Reign of Terror. But the same thing has happened many times in African
nations when a formerly subordinate tribe gains power and the formerly
dominant one loses it.
Oppression of those that are different is a very easy pattern for humans
to get into. Avoiding that pattern is very hard. Only a few nations on
Earth have ever managed it.
>
>Whether it stays in the form it's in right now is up in the air. I
>wouldn't place money on that either way. But if it does fly apart, it
>could either go like Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union. Having an elected
>government to start with is at least a good begining.
>
The Soviet Union's dissolution was aided by the relative mildness of the
antagonisms between the member groups. But even so, the breakup is
*still* not stabilized, and the violence may be escalating (look at the
recent assassination of the Chechnya president).
So, Iraq is unlikely, on its own, to match what the soviet union
actually managed, let alone a truly peaceful breakup.
>
>That's true. But then, < 1776, neither did we in the U.S.
Yes, we did. Britian had a long tradition of democratic institutions,
even if they also had an overlay of aristocracy. Indeed it was the
*violation* of our basic rights as Englishmen, and our exclusion from
the democratic process in England that lead to the Revolution. One of
the *biggest* issues was our lack of representation in the House of
Commons, something available to everyone who remained in England.
Bigdakine
>Date: 5/18/2004 9:17 PM Eastern Standard Time
>Message-id: <qPednd4FxN2...@comcast.com>
>
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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>Mark Isaak wrote:
>
>| On Mon, 17 May 2004 03:12:32 +0000 (UTC), Brian Hartman
>| <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
>|
>|
>|>(Hint: If you're going to claim that the WMD story was a lie. . .
>|
>|
>| The WMD story *was* a lie. The lie was that Iraq's WMDs were a threat
>| to the United States.
>
>Saddam's pilots were shooting at Americans on a regular basis. He was
>continually in violation of sanctions. He had already committed a
>terrorist act against the United States (trying to assassinate Bush I).
>~ On top of all that, he was still in possession of missiles that could
>threaten his neighbors, which would have drawn us into a wider war.
>And, as has become evident today, they did *not* destroy all their
>chemical weapons. Just because the Iraqi army couldn't land on the
>Jersey shore doesn't mean Iraq wasn't a threat.
>
Thats funny. I don't recall those reasons being used to justify military force
in Iraq.
What I heard were, that Iraq was an *imminent* threat, had copious WMD's and
participated in an indirect way in 9/11.
Oh, and of course, we were told this would be quick, easy and cheap.
Are you on the payroll of the GOP? Because, like them, you expect everybody to
have selective amnesia.
Rich Mathers
Brian Hartman wrote:
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> AC wrote:
>
> | On Mon, 17 May 2004 16:17:23 +0000 (UTC),
> | Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
> |
> |>Stanley Friesen wrote:
> |>| Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
> |>|
> |>|>It simply means that the intelligence the Bush administration was
> |>|>working with was the same intelligence the other administrations had.
> |>|
> |>|
> |>| No it wasn't. The detail reports available to the Shrub had deep
> |>| reservations about the continued existence of WMDs. He chose to ignore
> |>| those questions.
> |>|
> |>
> |>The intelligence was the same, because there were no avenues for new
> |>intelligence after the inspectors left under Clinton. What changed was
> |>the reaction to that intelligence. Bush waged a war based on the
> |>intelligence, while Clinton only launched missile strikes.
> |
> |
> | Considering the quality of the intelligence, I think Clinton was the wiser
> | man. I do fault Clinton for not going after bin Laden, however.
>
> That's certainly a valid position, but it still leaves you in the same
> place: Bush and Clinton both had the same information. Bush didn't
> exaggerate it. He simply went with what he was provided with.
>
No Bush did not exaggerate the WMD's and other war related issues but he
was feed exaggerated information from: Rumsfeld, the OSP in the Defense
Department, Cheney, the CIA, and it appears various private sources.
The OSP was a Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz (and possible Rice) creation
that systematically distorted intelligence information. Search the WEB
for Karen Kwaitkowski for conformation of this. Bush also put pressure
on CIA terrorist information specialist Clark to provide evidence of
Iraqy complicity in terrorism. No Bush did not exaggerate, it clearly
appears he convientiently had everyone else do it for him. Deniability
is critical political posturing; particularly when it comes to premptive
wars.
>
> |
> |
> |>|>What Bush has done will eventually make the world safer, because it will
> |>|>bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
> |>|>becoming a black hole for arms.
> |>|
> |>|
> |>| I have yet to see any evidence that any stable government will be formed
> |>| there by the Shrub's policies. So long as the three factions each
> |>| insist *they* should be in charge and consider the others lesser
> |>| citizens, there is no hope of a stable government. And I see no chance
> |>| of that changing in this decade.
> |>
> |>Just because you have 3 warring factions doesn't mean a stable
> |>government can't be formed. Many nations have coalition governments
> |>based on antagonistic factions.
> |
> |
> | It really depends on the level of antagonism, and it also depends on what
> | you mean by "stable". Iraq under Hussein was stable, Yugoslavia was
> stable
> | under Tito.
>
> Well, that's where my "point of a gun" clause comes in. Obviously,
> that's not the kind of "stable" that would be helpful for anyone
> concerned. One would hope that the Iraqis in the majority would realize
> they shouldn't use their majority as a cudgel, lest they throw the
> country into chaos. It's possible, of course that Iraq becomes
> balkanized and reverts to its ethnic states. As long as that's a
> peaceful process, maybe there's no down-side.
>
This was suggested in a NYT article about four months after the war
began. Iraq it was pointed out is a WWI creation of convience. It was
held together by an autocratic and frequently violent
political/religious ethic. A balkanization would create a greater
chance for stability in the region than the present administrations
policies. Although it seems impossible to readily assertain what the
present Republican policy is in Iraq other than a June 30th time table
of turning over the control of the country to a confederation of
functionally powerless Iragy citizens.
> |
> |
> |>Of course, the word "stable" is
> |>relative. It doesn't mecessarily mean that power doesn't change hands
> |>regularly. It just means it happens at the ballot box, rather than at
> |>the point of a gun.
> |
> |
> | Democracy, unfortunately, requires a certain amount of political
> stability.
> | That doesn't mean that Italy isn't a stable country, as all concerned
> still
> | abide by the will of the voter.
> |
> I'm not sure why you mention Italy here. Could you elaborate?
>
> |
> |> Ironically, one of the things the occupation might
> |>have done is to give the Iraqis a national identity they didn't have
> |>pre-war.
> |
> |
> | I see absolutely no sign of that.
> |
>
> The Shiites and Sunnis seem to be uniting around the fact that they want
> us out. There might even be cooperation between the two groups. (Not
> necessarily a good thing for us, but there it is.)
>
It probably will stop the moment we leave.
>
> |
> |>(Not great timing, from our perspective, but it might help in
> |>the long run.) Ultimately, the Iraqis will get whatever kind of
> |>government they choose.
> |
> |
> | And if that government is a perennially weak centralized government then
> | what? Well, I'll tell you what, it invites the strongest faction to put
> | forward a strongman who will "stabilize" Iraq by the application of force,
> | or, as you put it, the point of a gun.
> |
> If Iraq goes to a weak centralized government, it will look more like
> Afghanistan today than Germany in the 30's. You could substitute
> Afghanistan for other tribalized countries. It's possible it goes
> either way, but since for the past 30 or so years they've been one
> country, I don't see why the people would necessarily want to separate.
> ~ There will assuredly be a power struggle, but there are power struggles
> every day in the U.S. Again, the difference is how you settle these
> struggles.
The difference is profoundly different. It seems certain given the
present level of armed conflict going on now independent of outside
terrorist, that they will engage in violence to establish some form of
political system. A violent struggle overwhelmly leads to
dictatorships. Here it could be religious and/or military. The chances
of a near term democracy emerging in Iraq is almost nil. Not to mention
those who misunderstood the nature of Iraq are the ones who are
attempting to establish a democracy. The power struggles every day in
the US are not about killing to gain control - our Civil War resolution
killed about 500,000 men in a population base on slightly larger than
Iraqs. Our civility today is no comparison to Iraq's potential for
violence.
>
> |
> |> The US can't babysit Iraq forever.
> |
> |
> | No kidding.
>
> Well, it's not a flippant point. Some people think we want to stay
> there and control the country. We don't want to do that. If we did, we
> would've used a much heavier hand.
No but there is no time table to leave. The difficulties in
establishing a democracy would appear to require possibly 20 to 40
years. Think of South Korea which only recently has become more
democratic and doesn't have nearly the problem with ethnic/religious
divisions.
> |
> |
> |>The
> |>important point, though, is that it will be a government of the
> |>majority's choosing, with protections built-in for the minorities.
> |
> |
> | Is there any reason, judging the current situation, then one can expect,
> | even if a constitution is enshrined, that it will be honored by the
> stronger
> | parties? You can't just shove people into democracy.
>
> People will go with enlightened self-interest. Protecting minorities
> works because it's always possible to find oneself in the minority
> position in some way somewhere down the line. That's why freedom of
> religion works in the U.S. While most Americans are at least nominally
> Christians, they realize that protecting minorities protects everyone in
> the end. It could be cultural bias on my part, but I don't see that as
> a particularly hard lesson, especially to the Shiites who've been the
> oppressed *majority* all the Hussein years.
It is a powerful cultural bias. Most, not all, want a religious leader
not a secular leader. That stems from the overwhelming religious
commitments most people have. Read Georgie Anne Geyer (Sp?)
>
>
> |
> |
> |>There's no reason to think that that can't happen, unless you take the
> |>position that the Iraqis are somehow genetically incapable of it.
> |
> |
> | I'm sure Iraqis, in time, would be. The problem is that Iraq is an
> | artificial state, the product of early 20th century European imperialist
> | meddling.
>
> Whether it stays in the form it's in right now is up in the air. I
> wouldn't place money on that either way. But if it does fly apart, it
> could either go like Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union. Having an elected
> government to start with is at least a good begining.
>
> |
> |
> |>AFter
> |>all, how more different is the Iraq of today than the U.S. of the
> |>1860's? While the U.S. needed a civil war, the occupation might serve
> |>as the uniting force that the U.S. didn't have at the time.
> |
> |
> | Other than the fact that both countries are at the brink of civil war, not
> | very darn much. Iraq has no history of real democracy.
> |
>
> That's true. But then, < 1776, neither did we in the U.S. We were part
> of a monarchy that did not give us proper representation. Sure, we had
> experience with a constitution of sorts (under Great Britain's
> government) but that was a far cry from true democracy. I mean, for
> god's sake, they still had a king with real power! :)
Numerous institutions and cultural norms have to emerge, often through
violence to establish democracy. Your optimism is decidedly unwarranted
for a short term solution to Iraq's problems
Mark Isaak
<bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Mark Isaak wrote:
>
>| The WMD story *was* a lie. The lie was that Iraq's WMDs were a threat
>| to the United States.
>
>Saddam's pilots were shooting at Americans on a regular basis. He was
>continually in violation of sanctions. He had already committed a
>terrorist act against the United States (trying to assassinate Bush I).
>~ On top of all that, he was still in possession of missiles that could
>threaten his neighbors, which would have drawn us into a wider war.
>And, as has become evident today, they did *not* destroy all their
>chemical weapons. Just because the Iraqi army couldn't land on the
>Jersey shore doesn't mean Iraq wasn't a threat.
It sounds very much like you agree with everything I say but are
impelled by some misguided political loyalty to find some differences.
The bottom line is that a country is not justified going to war when
the overall prospects of going to war are worse than the overall
prospects of not going to war. From the beginning, it was plain that
that condition was not met by the Iraq war. So Bush and Co. had to
commit fraud to sell it.
Bobby D. Bryant
> Brian Hartman <bhar...@hush.com> wrote:
>>There doesn't seem to be much "hope" involved. Unless you take the
>>position that the sarin wasn't there (and the present evidence is
>>contrary to that position), then Iraq had weapons they specifically said
>>they didn't have, and were supposed to destroy.
>
> The present evidence seem to be that they didn't *know* they had it - it
> had been lost. In other words it is not a matter of not complying so
> much as a matter of keep horrid records.
Also, does anyone really think the USA can account for every WMD it ever
had?
Bobby D. Bryant
> Although it seems impossible to readily assertain what the present
> Republican policy is in Iraq other than a June 30th time table of
> turning over the control of the country to a confederation of
> functionally powerless Iragy citizens.
For the next six months the policy is going to be "do whatever is
necessary to make it look like everything is OK on election day".
Unfortunately that's likely to result in some rash actions that they hope
will provide quick solutions, without regard to human wellbeing.
Rich Mathers
Bobby D. Bryant wrote:
Reluctant to think and regretful to acknowledge that you are probably
correct.
dkomo
Based on this argument Russia couldn't possibly have become
democratic.
By the way, didn't Boris Yeltsin voluntarily step down?
Stanley Friesen
That isn't the intent of the argument. It only points out the
importance of tradition.
However, I am not yet convinced that Russia really *is* a democracy. It
is not yet clear that they have figured out the orderly and regular
transfer of power that is central to a democracy.
Stanley Friesen
>No but there is no time table to leave. The difficulties in
>establishing a democracy would appear to require possibly 20 to 40
>years.
That is about the right time frame. It takes at least 1 or 2
generations to begin to change cultural traditions, such as oppressing
"heretics".
AC
Considering events over the last few years, I'm not so certain it is a
democracy, at least not in the sense of the word that most Westerners would
recognize.
>
> By the way, didn't Boris Yeltsin voluntarily step down?
If you can call almost literally falling out of office voluntarily stepping
down. The man was a physical disaster zone in the end, and I think his
make-up artists finally threw up their hands and declared that Yeltsin
needed a mortician to make him look alive.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Donald Black
bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
now.<<
Oh please! Bush in his cultural arrogance has handed Iraq to the Shiites.
A people who will take over as soon as there is an election. A people who
justifiably hate us for our one sided Mid-East policy. A people who can
rightly vilify us because we have killed so many Iraqi civilians in this
"liberation". The only way to stop it its to permanently create bases to
protect our supply of oil, because that's what it is always been about. We
invaded under the fallacy that the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms.
We underestimated the number of people it would take to secure the nation
and we are underestimating the popularity of the "puppet regime" we are
putting in place. In every instance this administration has stepped in
piles of crap even after being warned by those who know better (Powell
etc.). The cultural arrogance has got to stop. Can't wait for November!
Obidon
AC
The problem now is that the US is in it knee deep, and cannot afford to
withdraw. To withdraw would lead to a disaster of horrific proportions that
would destabilize a region vital to the global economy. The damage has been
done, and now I think the US and the world community have go to figure out a
way to cleanly rebuild.
I personally am in favor of splitting Iraq up, but that leaves the problem
of Turkey, which will simply not tolerate a Kurdish state along its borders.
I can't even imagine what sort of pressure could be applied to Turkey to let
that happen.
Iraq is increasingly beginning to resemble Yugoslavia (due to a similar
heritage of Great Power meddling), and we all know the disaster that played
out, and is still playing out, over there. Bush seems to be vaguely
comprehending the monumental nature of the task at last, but has burned so
many bridges in the international community that I really doubt he will be
the man to fix the problems. Beyond that, he hasn't faced the fact that if
it is turned into an international nation building effort, the US is going
to have to give up final say.
Kerry is arrogant prick who seems to be trying to win the election by
blaming the rest of the world for domestic economic problems, but maybe he
will be a fresh face who can go out into the great big wide world and start
trying to get partners in Iraq. I don't expect Kerry to be too much more
sensible. Where Bush is terminally stupid, Kerry is terminally arrogant.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
David Jensen
<40AC370F...@cris.com>:
Russia isn't very democratic.
>By the way, didn't Boris Yeltsin voluntarily step down?
Yes, a powerful leader can force people to accept democracy. See Juan
Carlos after the death of Franco or George Washington at the beginning
of the USA.
Stanley Friesen
Interesting question. I think it might be possible, given how obsessive
we are about records. Still, even here it seems likely some stuff has
slipped through the cracks.
David Jensen
<88sqa0ddkdb4g65kh...@4ax.com>:
IIRC, a number of years ago, there was a report about the amount of
nuclear material that had gone missing from the various installations
(Savannah River, Hanford, et al.) Apparently we have lost well over one
weapon's worth. Speculation existed at the time that some of this was
intentionally diverted to other purposes.
Matt Silberstein
<bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
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>Mark Isaak wrote:
>
>| On Mon, 17 May 2004 03:12:32 +0000 (UTC), Brian Hartman
>| <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
>|
>|
>|>(Hint: If you're going to claim that the WMD story was a lie. . .
>|
>|
>| The WMD story *was* a lie. The lie was that Iraq's WMDs were a threat
>| to the United States.
>
>Saddam's pilots were shooting at Americans on a regular basis.
Which was not particularly dangerous. How may
decades/centuries/millennia would it have taken for the U.S. to look
800 people from that fire?
> He was
>continually in violation of sanctions. He had already committed a
>terrorist act against the United States (trying to assassinate Bush I).
Sorry, but attempts to assassinate national (military) leaders is not
terrorism. Or are you willing to accuse the U.S. of terrorism?
>~ On top of all that, he was still in possession of missiles that could
Not hit anything they aimed at. They were useless in the Iran/Iraq
War, they were useless in the first Gulf War.
>threaten his neighbors, which would have drawn us into a wider war.
I was not aware that it was the job of the U.S. to ensure that no
country was a threat to their neighbors.
>And, as has become evident today, they did *not* destroy all their
>chemical weapons.
Yeah, there was a shell. Even the administration is not making a big
deal about a single old ineffective shell. I don't suppose you want to
claim that Iraq was so efficient a country that this was not an
oversight.
>Just because the Iraqi army couldn't land on the
>Jersey shore doesn't mean Iraq wasn't a threat.
Agreed. It take other information to draw that conclusion. The actual
threat Saddam had was to stop pumping oil.
Larry Moran
Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.nospam> wrote:
> On Wed, 19 May 2004 01:17:54 +0000 (UTC), Brian Hartman
><bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
[snip]
>>| The WMD story *was* a lie. The lie was that Iraq's WMDs were a threat
>>| to the United States.
>>
>>Saddam's pilots were shooting at Americans on a regular basis.
>
> Which was not particularly dangerous. How may
> decades/centuries/millennia would it have taken for the U.S. to look
> 800 people from that fire?
Matt, I agree with your point but aren't you leaping to an unjustified
conclusion? What is the evidence that Iraqi pilots were shooting at
Americans on a reglar basis? Were these "shootings" taking place over
Iraqi airspace?
>> He was
>>continually in violation of sanctions. He had already committed a
>>terrorist act against the United States (trying to assassinate Bush I).
>
> Sorry, but attempts to assassinate national (military) leaders is not
> terrorism. Or are you willing to accuse the U.S. of terrorism?
What is the evidence that Saddam was behind the presumed assassination
attempt? How do we know it wasn't just a few bad people acting on their
own without orders from the leaders of the country? For that matter, how
do we know for sure that there even was an assassination attempt?
Larry Moran
Matt Silberstein
lam...@bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca (Larry Moran) wrote:
>On Tue, 25 May 2004 16:04:34 +0000 (UTC),
>Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.nospam> wrote:
>> On Wed, 19 May 2004 01:17:54 +0000 (UTC), Brian Hartman
>><bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>Mark Isaak wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>>| The WMD story *was* a lie. The lie was that Iraq's WMDs were a threat
>>>| to the United States.
>>>
>>>Saddam's pilots were shooting at Americans on a regular basis.
>>
>> Which was not particularly dangerous. How may
>> decades/centuries/millennia would it have taken for the U.S. to look
>> 800 people from that fire?
>
>Matt, I agree with your point but aren't you leaping to an unjustified
>conclusion? What is the evidence that Iraqi pilots were shooting at
>Americans on a reglar basis? Were these "shootings" taking place over
>Iraqi airspace?
I ignored regular as rhetoric. As for the shooting, Iraq lost the
first Gulf War and gave up the right to defend that airspace. Either
we accept such rules are rules or the U.S. and Canada are going to
have some unfortunate interactions.
>>> He was
>>>continually in violation of sanctions. He had already committed a
>>>terrorist act against the United States (trying to assassinate Bush I).
>>
>> Sorry, but attempts to assassinate national (military) leaders is not
>> terrorism. Or are you willing to accuse the U.S. of terrorism?
>
>What is the evidence that Saddam was behind the presumed assassination
>attempt? How do we know it wasn't just a few bad people acting on their
>own without orders from the leaders of the country? For that matter, how
>do we know for sure that there even was an assassination attempt?
I am skeptical, but not that skeptical. I am pretty such this was well
supported. Yes, the U.S. government will lie, but not everything is a
lie.
David Iain Greig
> On Wed, 19 May 2004 01:17:54 +0000 (UTC), Brian Hartman
><bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>Hash: SHA1
>>
>>Mark Isaak wrote:
>>
>>| On Mon, 17 May 2004 03:12:32 +0000 (UTC), Brian Hartman
>>| <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>|
>>|
>>|>(Hint: If you're going to claim that the WMD story was a lie. . .
>>|
>>|
>>| The WMD story *was* a lie. The lie was that Iraq's WMDs were a threat
>>| to the United States.
>>
>>Saddam's pilots were shooting at Americans on a regular basis.
>
> Which was not particularly dangerous. How may
> decades/centuries/millennia would it have taken for the U.S. to look
> 800 people from that fire?
>
>> He was
>>continually in violation of sanctions. He had already committed a
>>terrorist act against the United States (trying to assassinate Bush I).
>
> Sorry, but attempts to assassinate national (military) leaders is not
> terrorism. Or are you willing to accuse the U.S. of terrorism?
And in any event, I saw a report pointing out the explosives found by
the Kuwaitis weren't the sort normally used by Iraq anyhow. Who in their
right mind would believe the Kuwaitis anyhow... incubators, anyone?
--D.
rich hammett
>>Matt, I agree with your point but aren't you leaping to an unjustified
>>conclusion? What is the evidence that Iraqi pilots were shooting at
>>Americans on a reglar basis? Were these "shootings" taking place over
>>Iraqi airspace?
> I ignored regular as rhetoric. As for the shooting, Iraq lost the
> first Gulf War and gave up the right to defend that airspace. Either
> we accept such rules are rules or the U.S. and Canada are going to
> have some unfortunate interactions.
Burn our damn capitol, will you...
I want to be Bush's Czar over Kitchener-Waterloo. That looked
like a nice place to live last time I visited, and I'm sure
it would improve under US reconstruction, once we cleaned the
local governments of the dangerous Canadists.
rich
--
-to reply, it's hot not warm
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
\ Rich Hammett http://home.hiwaay.net/~rhammett
/ "Better the pride that resides in a citizen of the world;
\ than the pride that divides
/ when a colorful rag is unfurled."
Larry Moran
Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.nospam> wrote:
> On Tue, 25 May 2004 16:36:13 +0000 (UTC),
> lam...@bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca (Larry Moran) wrote:
[snip]
>>Matt, I agree with your point but aren't you leaping to an unjustified
>>conclusion? What is the evidence that Iraqi pilots were shooting at
>>Americans on a reglar basis? Were these "shootings" taking place over
>>Iraqi airspace?
>
> I ignored regular as rhetoric. As for the shooting, Iraq lost the
> first Gulf War and gave up the right to defend that airspace. Either
> we accept such rules are rules or the U.S. and Canada are going to
> have some unfortunate interactions.
Who told you that Iraqi pilots were shooting at Americans? Do you have
any independant confirmation of that? Were American planes in the no-fly
zone or were they in places were they weren't supposed to be over central
Iraq? Why in the world would Iraqi pilots shoot at American warplanes?
Isn't that suicidal? Were the Iraqi pilots shot down?
[snip]
>>What is the evidence that Saddam was behind the presumed assassination
>>attempt? How do we know it wasn't just a few bad people acting on their
>>own without orders from the leaders of the country? For that matter, how
>>do we know for sure that there even was an assassination attempt?
>
> I am skeptical, but not that skeptical. I am pretty such this was well
> supported. Yes, the U.S. government will lie, but not everything is a
> lie.
You might be interested in an article by Seymour M. Hersh published in
the New Yorker magazine in November, 1993.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?020930fr_archive02
I think you need to be a lot more skeptical. You know you've been lied to
many times in the past year. It's time to start questioning everything you
were told about Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Some of it might be true but
right now there's no way of telling what's true and what's propaganda.
Larry Moran
Matt Silberstein
I did not follow that story all that closely. I accept both that the
U.S. would (i.e. has) fake data and that they would get things wrong.
It does not "smell" of shenanigans to me primarily because we did so
little in reaction. My own feeling was that Saddam has reason to be
thankful towards Bush, but if he wanted to kill him I could understand
that as well.
That does *not* mean I approve of the actions or that I think such
should go unresponded to, just that I am not outraged by the notion.
Personally I wish countries would fight by attacking leaders rather
than soldiers. Then again, I believe in democracy and equality and all
that.
Walter Bushell
Stanley Friesen <sar...@friesen.net> wrote:
We have many weapons worth of plutonium missing, if that is what is
bothering you.
Chris Thompson
news:slrncb76dk....@bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca:
> On Tue, 25 May 2004 17:25:09 +0000 (UTC),
> Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.nospam> wrote:
>> On Tue, 25 May 2004 16:36:13 +0000 (UTC),
>> lam...@bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca (Larry Moran) wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>>Matt, I agree with your point but aren't you leaping to an
>>>unjustified conclusion? What is the evidence that Iraqi pilots were
>>>shooting at Americans on a reglar basis? Were these "shootings"
>>>taking place over Iraqi airspace?
>>
>> I ignored regular as rhetoric. As for the shooting, Iraq lost the
>> first Gulf War and gave up the right to defend that airspace. Either
>> we accept such rules are rules or the U.S. and Canada are going to
>> have some unfortunate interactions.
>
> Who told you that Iraqi pilots were shooting at Americans? Do you have
> any independant confirmation of that? Were American planes in the
> no-fly zone or were they in places were they weren't supposed to be
> over central Iraq? Why in the world would Iraqi pilots shoot at
> American warplanes? Isn't that suicidal? Were the Iraqi pilots shot
> down?
>
I don't think the OP was correct. As a matter of fact, I don't think
Saddam had much of an air force after Desert Storm. I think someone was
getting confused between aircraft shooting at US (and British) planes,
and SAMs painting them with target-acquisition radar. There were a few
times missiles were actually launched, and perhaps one coalition plane
was damaged or shot down, but it sure wasn't an everyday thing. It
amounted to a death sentence for the SAM crew if they launched, and
there were decent odds of eating an ASM for just flipping the radar on.
The coalition air forces went through several stages of aggressiveness
in the way they patrolled the no-fly zone, ranging from lackadaisical to
rabid.
Chris
--
"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and
then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so
as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry
on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that
sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually
on a battlefield." --George Orwell, 1946, "Under Your Nose"
Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
Stanley Friesen wrote:
| Brian Hartman <bhar...@hush.com> wrote:
|
|>There doesn't seem to be much "hope" involved. Unless you take the
|>position that the sarin wasn't there (and the present evidence is
|>contrary to that position), then Iraq had weapons they specifically said
|>they didn't have, and were supposed to destroy.
|
|
| The present evidence seem to be that they didn't *know* they had it - it
| had been lost. In other words it is not a matter of not complying so
| much as a matter of keep horrid records.
|
The present evidence seems to indicate that the insurgents didn't know
they had it. There's nothing to suggest that the Iraqi government
didn't know. Specifically, the government made an inventory which it
presented to the U.N. Going over that inventory, the U.N. inspection
team recognized that there were materials that weren't accounted for in
the records. Combine that with the fact that the Iraqis were dragging
their feet to prevent the inspectors from looking around. It certainly
creates the appearance that the government knew it was hiding something.
~ Also, consider the fact that we now know that his scientists were
telling Hussein that they *did* have WMD's (in hopes of keeping the
money flowing). That says, at the very least, that his regime had the
intention of developing such weapons, despite the sanctions and the
inspectors. That would mean it would only be a matter of time.
As for the United States: It's my understanding that the government
goes into an absolute panic whenever they can't account for a nuclear
device (for good reason). We keep much better records. Knowing that
Iraq had the intellectual means to construct WMDs (chemical and
biological), and that the regime wanted them, what's the positive side
for taking their word for it that they didn't have any?
| And one shell hardly an arsenal makes.
|
| The peace of God be with you.
|
| Stanley Friesen
|
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Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
Donald Black wrote:
|>>What Bush has done will eventually make the world safer, because it will
|
| bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
| becoming a black hole for arms. But yes, it's admittedly a mess right
| now.<<
|
| Oh please! Bush in his cultural arrogance has handed Iraq to the Shiites.
The Shiites make up most of the population of Iraq. Whom else would you
~ like to see have a say in the country? Yes, they hate us for our
support of Israel, but getting rid of Saddam and putting them in control
is one *less* reason for them to hate us, in the long term. And the
number of Iraqi civilians killed during the war is nothing compared to
those killed under the regime.
Of course, you're right about underestimating how many troops it would
take. Rumsfeld's lean war turned out to be a very, very bad idea.
As far as November goes, Kerry doesn't have a different idea for Iraq.
He'd end up doing the exact thing Bush is doing now.
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Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
Mark Isaak wrote:
| On Wed, 19 May 2004 01:17:54 +0000 (UTC), Brian Hartman
| <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
|
|
|>Mark Isaak wrote:
|>
|>| The WMD story *was* a lie. The lie was that Iraq's WMDs were a threat
|>| to the United States.
|>
|>Saddam's pilots were shooting at Americans on a regular basis. He was
|>continually in violation of sanctions. He had already committed a
|>terrorist act against the United States (trying to assassinate Bush I).
|>~ On top of all that, he was still in possession of missiles that could
|>threaten his neighbors, which would have drawn us into a wider war.
|>And, as has become evident today, they did *not* destroy all their
|>chemical weapons. Just because the Iraqi army couldn't land on the
|>Jersey shore doesn't mean Iraq wasn't a threat.
|
|
| It sounds very much like you agree with everything I say but are
| impelled by some misguided political loyalty to find some differences.
|
I don't agree that Iraq wasn't a threat to the U.S. Only that it wasn't
a threat to U.S. soil. We went to war in bad circumstances (since it
was evident that France and Germany would never support war, under any
conditions save an Iraqi attack on U.S. soil), but we fought the right
war, in the long run. Even if Iraq ultimately breaks up into several
different states, it will serve our interests better than leaving the
Hussein regime in place, seeing as how he showed no signs of ultimately
doing what the U.N. required of him.
I don't like the lack of planning for the post-Hussein world. That's
really what's got us in this position. But the war itself was the right
thing to do, given the circumstances as they existed at the time.
My basic position on the war is this: We fought the war 12 years late,
but at least we fought it. Leaving Hussein in power after defeating him
~ was the biggest blunder of the Bush I administration, and one of the
reasons I'm glad (in retrospect) he was defeated.
For the record, the war is the *only* thing I agree with Bush on
politically. In terms of his stance on homosexuality and religion, I
could really do without him.
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Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
Bigdakine wrote:
|>Subject: Re: Should Bush resign???
|>From: Brian Hartman bhart...@comcast.net
|>Date: 5/18/2004 9:17 PM Eastern Standard Time
|>Message-id: <qPednd4FxN2...@comcast.com>
|>
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|>Hash: SHA1
|>
|>Mark Isaak wrote:
|>
|>| On Mon, 17 May 2004 03:12:32 +0000 (UTC), Brian Hartman
|>| <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
|>|
|>|
|>|>(Hint: If you're going to claim that the WMD story was a lie. . .
|>|
|>|
|>| The WMD story *was* a lie. The lie was that Iraq's WMDs were a threat
|>| to the United States.
|>
|>Saddam's pilots were shooting at Americans on a regular basis. He was
|>continually in violation of sanctions. He had already committed a
|>terrorist act against the United States (trying to assassinate Bush I).
|>~ On top of all that, he was still in possession of missiles that could
|>threaten his neighbors, which would have drawn us into a wider war.
|>And, as has become evident today, they did *not* destroy all their
|>chemical weapons. Just because the Iraqi army couldn't land on the
|>Jersey shore doesn't mean Iraq wasn't a threat.
|>
|
|
|
| Thats funny. I don't recall those reasons being used to justify
military force
| in Iraq.
If not, you haven't been paying attention. The WMD issue is the one the
administration used to justify the war to the U.N., but Powell, Rice and
others have all made reference to to the incidents I mentioned above.
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Brian Hartman
Bigdakine wrote:
Here's one article about the no-fly-zone attacks:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/07/26/us.iraq/
And, among the other things Bush said in his infamous 2002 speech:
"The world has tried no-fly zones to keep Saddam from terrorizing his
own people ... and in the last year alone, the Iraqi military has fired
upon American and British pilots more than 750 times."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/07/bush.transcript/
Iraq was attacked because the regime continued to pose a threat to U.S.
forces and to its neighbors. It would have done so as long as the
regime was in power.
And, no, I'm not a big fan of Bush's other policies (e.g., homosexuality
and stem-cell research) but on this one, he did the right thing by
finishing what had been dragging on for 12+ years.
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AC
How will pissing off Turkey, a NATO ally, and potentially further
destabilizing a region serve the West's interests?
>
> I don't like the lack of planning for the post-Hussein world. That's
> really what's got us in this position. But the war itself was the right
> thing to do, given the circumstances as they existed at the time.
It was the knowledge of what could happen in the region that ultimately held
back the elder Bush's hand. Yes Virginia, there are worse things than
Hussein.
>
> My basic position on the war is this: We fought the war 12 years late,
> but at least we fought it. Leaving Hussein in power after defeating him
> ~ was the biggest blunder of the Bush I administration, and one of the
> reasons I'm glad (in retrospect) he was defeated.
Except that it looks like the US will spend an enormous amount of time,
money and lives holding on to this piece of turf.
The administration lied, either knowingly or unknowingly. Even worse, it
allowed an incompetent like Schroeder and a crook like Chirac to hold on to
power. It has created a huge instability which may very well lead to an
Iranian puppet state in the south, a Kurdish state in the north which will
invite Turkish invasion or at least containment, and a central pseudo-state
that will likely be victimized by both north and south.
The invasion of Iraq was a violation of International Law and has turned the
US into a rogue state. GWB seems to see himself as a man without limits,
and only now, when he is facing defeat in November is he trying to find some
way of getting somebody else involved. He has severely damaged US
credibility abroad. The US isn't so strong that it has no need of friends,
and right now it doesn't have very many. It has the UK as its sole
meaningful ally, and there has been a lot of rumors running around that
Blair is not at all pleased with the tiny role it has been given in Iraq.
Not to mention the fact that there is a distinct possibility that Blair
won't survive the next general election in Merry Olde England.
Invading Afghanistan was right, even though that is also a long-term
commitment. Solid links could be drawn between Al-qaeda and the Taliban.
It didn't even require top-secret documents to do that, as it was not even a
very well-kept secret that Al-qaeda and the Taliban were almost the same
darn thing. Invading Afghanistan deprived the enemies of the US capable of
mounting attacks against it of a major base of operations, and deprived them
of a major center of operations.
Attacking Iraq simply ousted a dictator who could do little more than punish
his own people. He posed no meaningful threat to the United States, and had
not for over a decade. Yes, Hussein was sending cash to Palestinian suicide
bombers, but he certainly was not in bed with a religious fanatic like Osama
bin Laden. No one could be 100% sure that Hussein didn't have WMDs hidden
somewhere, but Blix and the UN certainly saw no evidence of any quantities
sufficient to justify an invasion. It's difficult to use the sporadic
attacks on patrolling aircraft as an excuse for invasion, as this never
amounted to very much of a threat.
In the end, the way international law is constituted, you cannot simply
invade countries because the guy running them are bad. If that is the
argument, then where are the vast armies marching into Zimbabwe to save
those people from a man willing to starve them to death just to get rid of
white farmers and further keep his hold on power? If the US wishes to put
forward a new policy where tyrants are deposed, then so be it. There are
other countries in the grips of very bad people, so go there too.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
AC wrote:
I don't accept the premise that the goal was to "hold on" to this piece
of turf. The goal was to depose Saddam Hussein. Having done that, we
needed to put a government in that the people could live with. It
hasn't happened yet, but it's not a quick process.
| The administration lied, either knowingly or unknowingly.
There's no such thing as lying "unknowingly". Either they lied or they
didn't. If they didn't know, then it wasn't a lie. There's a
difference between not giving accurate information and lying.
~ Even worse, it
| allowed an incompetent like Schroeder and a crook like Chirac to hold
on to
| power.
These are the same two "allies" that we were supposed to hold off on
attacking Iraq for, weren't they?
| It has created a huge instability which may very well lead to an
| Iranian puppet state in the south, a Kurdish state in the north which will
| invite Turkish invasion or at least containment, and a central
pseudo-state
| that will likely be victimized by both north and south.
That's why we're trying to get a strong central government in there. It
may or may not happen, but several smaller states might be better in the
long run than one state run by a tyrant.
|
| The invasion of Iraq was a violation of International Law and has
turned the
| US into a rogue state.
Based on what?
~ GWB seems to see himself as a man without limits,
| and only now, when he is facing defeat in November is he trying to
find some
| way of getting somebody else involved.
This simply isn't true. From the beginning, he tried to get other
nations involved via the U.N. The problem was that France and Germany
had vetoes in the security council, and, as you noted above, those are
both corrupt governments with ties to the former Iraqi regime.
~ He has severely damaged US
| credibility abroad. The US isn't so strong that it has no need of
friends,
| and right now it doesn't have very many.
I think this is an overly-simplified view of diplomacy. France and
Germany aren't our "friends" right now because they see a political
advantage in showing disdain for the U.S. Our relations with Europe
haven't suffered any meaningful damage. If you think they have, could
you point to it?
~ It has the UK as its sole
| meaningful ally, and there has been a lot of rumors running around that
| Blair is not at all pleased with the tiny role it has been given in Iraq.
| Not to mention the fact that there is a distinct possibility that Blair
| won't survive the next general election in Merry Olde England.
|
| Invading Afghanistan was right, even though that is also a long-term
| commitment. Solid links could be drawn between Al-qaeda and the Taliban.
| It didn't even require top-secret documents to do that, as it was not
even a
| very well-kept secret that Al-qaeda and the Taliban were almost the same
| darn thing. Invading Afghanistan deprived the enemies of the US
capable of
| mounting attacks against it of a major base of operations, and
deprived them
| of a major center of operations.
|
All true, of course.
| Attacking Iraq simply ousted a dictator who could do little more than
punish
| his own people. He posed no meaningful threat to the United States,
and had
| not for over a decade. Yes, Hussein was sending cash to Palestinian
suicide
| bombers, but he certainly was not in bed with a religious fanatic like
Osama
| bin Laden.
There are documented ties between al Qaeda and Iraq. (I'm *not* saying
that Hussein had a direct role in 9/11.) I have no problem believing
that both Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were capable of suppressing their
mutual animosity for the sake of achieving a mutual goal. al Qaeda, in
particular, showed its ability to switch from one enemy to another when
they first kicked out the Soviet Union and then later attacked the
United States.
~ No one could be 100% sure that Hussein didn't have WMDs hidden
| somewhere, but Blix and the UN certainly saw no evidence of any quantities
| sufficient to justify an invasion. It's difficult to use the sporadic
| attacks on patrolling aircraft as an excuse for invasion, as this never
| amounted to very much of a threat.
|
Even if the attacks on the planes themselves didn't pose a direct threat
to the United States (which I don't concede, as attacks such as that
could be seen as acts of war in themselves) those attacks showed
Hussein's determination to keep the coalition forces out of that area,
to give him free reign. Now, I don't particularly blame him for wanting
~ free reign in his own country, but it remains true that those attacks
were violations of the ceasefire that he signed, and in themselves
enough to justify military action.
| In the end, the way international law is constituted, you cannot simply
| invade countries because the guy running them are bad. If that is the
| argument, then where are the vast armies marching into Zimbabwe to save
| those people from a man willing to starve them to death just to get rid of
| white farmers and further keep his hold on power? If the US wishes to put
| forward a new policy where tyrants are deposed, then so be it. There are
| other countries in the grips of very bad people, so go there too.
|
You can't just invade a country because you don't like the leader.
That's an impractical way to run things. (For one thing, not every
leader we don't like is weak enough for us to take down.) But where the
rewards for success are great enough, and the risk low enough, yes, we
should try to do the right thing. Personally, I think the situation in
the Sudan begs for our help more than in Zimbabwe. Whether our action
in Iraq was worth it is for history to decide. The outcome isn't
visible at this point, because we haven't reached the endpoint.
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Larry Moran
Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
[snip]
> And, among the other things Bush said in his infamous 2002 speech:
>
> "The world has tried no-fly zones to keep Saddam from terrorizing his
> own people ... and in the last year alone, the Iraqi military has fired
> upon American and British pilots more than 750 times."
Well, that certainly convinces me. If George Bush said it then it must
be true. I'm sure the President of the United States would never lie
about Iraq.
Larry Moran
AC
That much is certain.
>
>| The administration lied, either knowingly or unknowingly.
>
> There's no such thing as lying "unknowingly". Either they lied or they
> didn't. If they didn't know, then it wasn't a lie. There's a
> difference between not giving accurate information and lying.
I'm fairly certain they knew that, at best, the information was largely
guess work, and that they put a slant on it to make it appear as if they
were far more certain than they were. We can argue semantics all day, but
essentially what the American people and their allies were told was not
real.
>
>
> ~ Even worse, it
>| allowed an incompetent like Schroeder and a crook like Chirac to hold
> on to
>| power.
>
> These are the same two "allies" that we were supposed to hold off on
> attacking Iraq for, weren't they?
Considering how Bush got into power, I'd say he doesn't have much moral
ground above those two.
>
>| It has created a huge instability which may very well lead to an
>| Iranian puppet state in the south, a Kurdish state in the north which will
>| invite Turkish invasion or at least containment, and a central
> pseudo-state
>| that will likely be victimized by both north and south.
>
> That's why we're trying to get a strong central government in there. It
> may or may not happen, but several smaller states might be better in the
> long run than one state run by a tyrant.
The problem is that Iraq is not a real state. It is a pseudo-state carved
out by the Great Powers nearly a century ago. They ignored ever tribal
interest, lumping together people who had no real common ground and called
it Iraq. It has required maintenance by men willing to use any force
necessary to keep the country together.
And again, how are you going to satisfy Turkey that a Kurdish state will not
be the rallying cry for Kurds in Turkey to rise up. As I recall, Turkey is
a NATO ally. Is that how the US treats its treaty allies?
>
>|
>| The invasion of Iraq was a violation of International Law and has
> turned the
>| US into a rogue state.
>
> Based on what?
>
> ~ GWB seems to see himself as a man without limits,
>| and only now, when he is facing defeat in November is he trying to
> find some
>| way of getting somebody else involved.
>
> This simply isn't true. From the beginning, he tried to get other
> nations involved via the U.N. The problem was that France and Germany
> had vetoes in the security council, and, as you noted above, those are
> both corrupt governments with ties to the former Iraqi regime.
The United States had ties with the same man. The US is just as culpable.
It is nothing short of hypocritical to condemn Germany and France for doing
business with Hussein, when the US was his tightest pal during the 1980s.
>
> ~ He has severely damaged US
>| credibility abroad. The US isn't so strong that it has no need of
> friends,
>| and right now it doesn't have very many.
>
> I think this is an overly-simplified view of diplomacy. France and
> Germany aren't our "friends" right now because they see a political
> advantage in showing disdain for the U.S. Our relations with Europe
> haven't suffered any meaningful damage. If you think they have, could
> you point to it?
The majority of Europeans find the US action unwarranted. At the end of the
day, the ballot box is what sets the pace. Germany and France are an
enormous portion of the Continental population, and you just sort of ignore
them.
>
> ~ It has the UK as its sole
>| meaningful ally, and there has been a lot of rumors running around that
>| Blair is not at all pleased with the tiny role it has been given in Iraq.
>| Not to mention the fact that there is a distinct possibility that Blair
>| won't survive the next general election in Merry Olde England.
>|
>| Invading Afghanistan was right, even though that is also a long-term
>| commitment. Solid links could be drawn between Al-qaeda and the Taliban.
>| It didn't even require top-secret documents to do that, as it was not
> even a
>| very well-kept secret that Al-qaeda and the Taliban were almost the same
>| darn thing. Invading Afghanistan deprived the enemies of the US
> capable of
>| mounting attacks against it of a major base of operations, and
> deprived them
>| of a major center of operations.
>|
>
> All true, of course.
Afghanistan also had the benefit that only two or three countries recognized
the Taliban as the lawful government.
>
>
>
>| Attacking Iraq simply ousted a dictator who could do little more than
> punish
>| his own people. He posed no meaningful threat to the United States,
> and had
>| not for over a decade. Yes, Hussein was sending cash to Palestinian
> suicide
>| bombers, but he certainly was not in bed with a religious fanatic like
> Osama
>| bin Laden.
>
> There are documented ties between al Qaeda and Iraq. (I'm *not* saying
> that Hussein had a direct role in 9/11.) I have no problem believing
> that both Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were capable of suppressing their
> mutual animosity for the sake of achieving a mutual goal. al Qaeda, in
> particular, showed its ability to switch from one enemy to another when
> they first kicked out the Soviet Union and then later attacked the
> United States.
The only documentation I've ever seen comes from highly dubious sources.
Most of Powell's speech to the UN was a flight of fancy. The American
people and the world were fed a load of exagerations and bullshit, my
friend.
>
>
> ~ No one could be 100% sure that Hussein didn't have WMDs hidden
>| somewhere, but Blix and the UN certainly saw no evidence of any quantities
>| sufficient to justify an invasion. It's difficult to use the sporadic
>| attacks on patrolling aircraft as an excuse for invasion, as this never
>| amounted to very much of a threat.
>|
>
> Even if the attacks on the planes themselves didn't pose a direct threat
> to the United States (which I don't concede, as attacks such as that
> could be seen as acts of war in themselves) those attacks showed
> Hussein's determination to keep the coalition forces out of that area,
> to give him free reign. Now, I don't particularly blame him for wanting
> ~ free reign in his own country, but it remains true that those attacks
> were violations of the ceasefire that he signed, and in themselves
> enough to justify military action.
And the US had a decade in which to declare war. To wait a decade and then
invade, without even the support of the Security Council might be justified
if there was evidence of some escalation. There was no such evidence.
There was no justification.
>
>| In the end, the way international law is constituted, you cannot simply
>| invade countries because the guy running them are bad. If that is the
>| argument, then where are the vast armies marching into Zimbabwe to save
>| those people from a man willing to starve them to death just to get rid of
>| white farmers and further keep his hold on power? If the US wishes to put
>| forward a new policy where tyrants are deposed, then so be it. There are
>| other countries in the grips of very bad people, so go there too.
>|
>
> You can't just invade a country because you don't like the leader.
> That's an impractical way to run things.
It seems to be the way the US did it.
>(For one thing, not every
> leader we don't like is weak enough for us to take down.)
I'm sure 50,000 well-trained American soldiers would prove much more than a
match for Mugabe's "veterans".
> But where the
> rewards for success are great enough, and the risk low enough, yes, we
> should try to do the right thing.
Then I suggest you start a rallying cry to save Africa.
> Personally, I think the situation in
> the Sudan begs for our help more than in Zimbabwe. Whether our action
> in Iraq was worth it is for history to decide. The outcome isn't
> visible at this point, because we haven't reached the endpoint.
I dunno. Zimbabwe is in for a rough ride. I'm sure that the US, being such
a wonderous power, interested only in helping the impoverished and
oppressed, will aid those African nations as it has aided the Iraqis.
I won't hold my breath for that, or for an Iraq that doesn't require a
flippin' army of tens of thousands to hold it together.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Stanley Friesen
>| Iranian puppet state in the south, a Kurdish state in the north which will
>| invite Turkish invasion or at least containment, and a central
>pseudo-state
>| that will likely be victimized by both north and south.
>
>That's why we're trying to get a strong central government in there. It
>may or may not happen,
It won't happen the way Bush is going about it. Without a long-term
military commitment on our part, any government put in now will quickly
collapse. And such a military commitment will increase Arab antagonism
to the US, and further erode what is left of our alliances.
> but several smaller states might be better in the
>long run than one state run by a tyrant.
>
Not if they are constantly at war with another and with Turkey.
>Even if the attacks on the planes themselves didn't pose a direct threat
>to the United States (which I don't concede, as attacks such as that
>could be seen as acts of war in themselves) those attacks showed
>Hussein's determination to keep the coalition forces out of that area,
>to give him free reign. Now, I don't particularly blame him for wanting
>~ free reign in his own country, but it remains true that those attacks
>were violations of the ceasefire that he signed, and in themselves
>enough to justify military action.
Yes. Too bad they were really mostly ignored when Bush was making his
case for an invasion. He mentioned them rarely, and only in passing,
never as a major justification.
Wade Hines
Somebody should talk to George about those upstart Canadians.
Once we point out the proximity on a map, George will probably
get a grasp on the imminent threat, quit possibly a greater
threat than Iraq ever was. Moreover, they have already inflitrated
Hollywood. The logic and significance of that is as clear as the
link between how often shots were fired at US and British planes
and the world trying no-fly zones to keep Saddam from _terrorizing_
his own people.
Mike Dunford
news:slrncbo1ts.334....@alder.alberni.net:
> On Tue, 1 Jun 2004 02:23:03 +0000 (UTC),
> Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
[snip]
>> You can't just invade a country because you don't like the leader.
>> That's an impractical way to run things.
>
> It seems to be the way the US did it.
>
>>(For one thing, not every
>> leader we don't like is weak enough for us to take down.)
>
> I'm sure 50,000 well-trained American soldiers would prove much more
> than a match for Mugabe's "veterans".
[snip]
Unfortunately, we don't have that many troops -- well-trained or otherwise
-- to spare at the moment. The administration's preference for fantasy over
reality during the early "planning" stages for the postwar situation has
lead to a situation where the US military is extremely shorthanded.
--Mike Dunford
Larry Moran
Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
> AC wrote:
[snip]
> He [Bush] has severely damaged US credibility abroad. The US isn't so strong
> that it has no need of friends, and right now it doesn't have very many.
>
> I think this is an overly-simplified view of diplomacy. France and
> Germany aren't our "friends" right now because they see a political
> advantage in showing disdain for the U.S. Our relations with Europe
> haven't suffered any meaningful damage. If you think they have, could
> you point to it?
US Favorability Ratings
Summer March May March
2002 2003 2003 2004
Britain 75% 48% 70% 58%
France 63% 31% 43% 37%
Germany 61% 25% 45% 38%
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206
--------------------------------------------
IPSOS/AP poll, Feb. 13-21, 2004
Do you have a very positive, somewhat positive, somehwat negative, or very
negative opinion of the role that the President of the United States,
George W. Bush, plays in world affairs?
Total
Negative
United Kingdom 68%
Spain 77%
Italy 58%
Germany 85%
France 82%
Mexico 53%
Canada 67%
USA 42%
http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/pressrelease.cfm?id=2076
--------------------------------------------
Larry Moran
Matt Silberstein
How is having a reasonable and rational view damaging to the U.S.? It
would damage us much more if Europeans had a favorable view of us or
Shrub.
--
Matt Silberstein
Do in order to understand.
Bigdakine
>Message-id: <Xq6dnUkkPcs...@comcast.com>
>
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Donald Black wrote:
>
>|>>What Bush has done will eventually make the world safer, because it will
>|
>| bring Iraq under more responsible government, and prevent Iraq from
>| becoming a black hole for arms. But yes, it's admittedly a mess right
>| now.<<
>|
>| Oh please! Bush in his cultural arrogance has handed Iraq to the Shiites.
>
>The Shiites make up most of the population of Iraq. Whom else would you
>~ like to see have a say in the country? Yes, they hate us for our
>support of Israel, but getting rid of Saddam and putting them in control
>is one *less* reason for them to hate us, in the long term. And the
>number of Iraqi civilians killed during the war is nothing compared to
>those killed under the regime.
>
>Of course, you're right about underestimating how many troops it would
>take. Rumsfeld's lean war turned out to be a very, very bad idea.
>
>As far as November goes, Kerry doesn't have a different idea for Iraq.
>He'd end up doing the exact thing Bush is doing now.
No, I don't think so. From what I've seen your posts consist of self-serving
post-hoc rationalizations.
I doubt Kerry would've sent 150,000 troops to the mid-east, which made war a
fait accompli. Once Bush did that there was no turning back. To pull out
would've been an humiliation for Bush.
Even if you forgave the Bush admin on the Iraq issue, Iraq was never an
imminent threat to the US, and while it wanted nukes, had no means of obtaining
them, and played no role in global terrrorism.
Sure, there were humanitarian reasons for getting rid of Saddam. But given the
way the war was conducted, its rather clear that humanitarian issues were
simply cover.
Stuart
Dr. Stuart A. Weinstein
Ewa Beach Institute of Tectonics
"To err is human, but to really foul things up
requires a creationist"
Bigdakine
>Message-id: <MeednXHqBrg...@comcast.com>
Thats the one that counts.
but Powell, Rice and
>others have all made reference to to the incidents I mentioned above.
Why not use those before the UN as well?
As it turns out even Powell admits much of his testimony beofre the UN was
based on bullshit. If the reasons were as persuasive as you seem to intimate,
you'd think Powell wouldn't need to make retractions now.
Earle Jones
bigd...@aol.comGetaGrip (Bigdakine) wrote:
> >Subject: Re: Should Bush resign???
*
This thread, "Should Bush Resign", must be a joke! Bush will not
even admit a small mistake, let alone resign. At his recent press
conference, a young reporter asked him, "Mr. President you once said
that when you were the owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team,
your biggest mistake before becoming president was trading Sammy
Sosa to Chicago. What was your biggest mistake after you were
elected president?
His response: "This question was not on the list of questions
submitted."
Can you believe that? The president of the USA lacks the ability to
come up with any reasonable answer. The idea that he has made a
mistake is unthinkable to him. He is rigidly unbending in his
beliefs. Professor K. van Wormer believes that his behavior is
typical of long-term alcoholics. The brief article, posted below
appeared in the SF Chronicle:
BRAIN CHEMISTRY
The Serotonin Factor
Bush's 'dry drunk' thinking
Katherine van Wormer Sunday, May 25, 2003
San Francisco Chronicle
--------------------------------
On the surface, the launching of war in the Middle East to rid the
world of a ruthless tyrant and gain control of rich oil resources
seemed to make some sense. Scratch below the surface, however, and
the price began to seem absurdly high financially, politically and
socially.
So the question was: Why? Why the war? Protesters the world over
chanted "No blood for oil," but some political analysts and
commentators are probing deeper, searching Bush's psyche for the
true explanation. Before the invasion of Iraq began, I became struck
by certain traits of the president's personality that were highly
familiar to me. The familiarity was based on the years I had
spent providing substance abuse treatment and researching the
dynamics of addictive thinking.
Brain studies reinforce what recovering alcoholics and their
counselors have been saying for years: Long-term alcohol and other
drug use changes the chemistry of the brain.
RIGIDITY IN THINKING
These anomalies in brain patterns are associated with a rigidity in
thinking; both harm reduction and Alcoholics Anonymous treatment
approaches focus on helping people in recovery work on their
destructive thought processes.
"Dry drunk" is a slang term used to describe the recovering
alcoholic who is no longer drinking, but whose thinking is clouded.
Such an individual is said to be dry but not truly sober; such an
individual tends to go to extremes.
It was when I started noticing the extreme language that colored
President Bush's speeches that I began to wonder. First there were
the terms -- "crusade", "infinite justice" -- that were later
withdrawn. Next came "evildoers," "axis of evil," "regime change" --
terms that have almost become cliches. Something about the polarized
thinking and the obsessive repetition reminded me of many of the
recovering alcoholics and addicts I had treated.
FURTHER INSIGHTS
Hundreds of people, many of them in recovery from alcoholism, have
written 'Aha' letters and provided additional insights to the
hypothesis: "I spotted it right away -- he's a dry drunk." Or: "He
needs to work on his issues."
Consider the most commonly delineated traits of irrational thinking
known as "dry-drunk syndrome" and how closely they match Bush's
personality characteristics.
GRANDIOSITY
Exaggerated self-importance and grandiose behavior: Unlike most
others in this category, the president of the United States
possesses awesome power. The way he uses it is another matter.
Consider Bush's readiness to inflict "regime change" on another
nation without any consideration that other nations might dare to do
the same. His sense is of a divine mission to see that evil is
punished.
As governor of Texas, Bush presided over hundreds of executions; in
Iraq he ordered the firing of thousands of missiles into populated
areas.
All-or-nothing thinking: This narrow and moralistic world view
relates to extreme behaviors of indulgence and risk-taking. Because
of the destructiveness of this either/or pattern of thinking in
addicts, the treatment focus is placed here.
Bush's "black and white thinking," his view of the world in terms of
good and evil, is evidenced in both speech and actions. "Either
you're with us or you're with the enemy" is a favorite theme.
SEROTONIN IN THE BRAIN
Obsessiveness: This trait, related to levels of serotonin in the
brain, is manifest as an inability to let go, the determination to
pursue one path, whatever the cost.
Consider that Bush has been out to "get Saddam" since shortly after
the events of Sept. 11. Consider also the extent to which he has
been driven to accomplish his recent mission to the disregard of
almost everything else.
I trace Bush's obsession over Iraq, in part, to his struggles
growing up in the shadow of his much more successful father.
Sent away to the very New England prep school where his father's
accomplishments were still remembered, the younger Bush became
better known for his pranks than athletic or academic achievements.
His later drinking bouts, arrests, and much later religious
conversion are well documented. In Iraq, Bush junior had a unique
opportunity to finish the job his father was criticized for failing
to do -- to "take out" Saddam.
A PERSONAL CRUSADE
Going after Iraq became a personal crusade.
The man who knows George W. best, the person most familiar with his
rashness of thought, recently sent him a message. In a speech at
Tufts University, George Bush Sr. emphasized the need for the United
States to maintain close ties with Europe and the United Nations.
"You've got to reach out to the other person," he advised.
If only George W. would.
[Katherine van Wormer is professor of social work at the University
of Northern Iowa. She is co-author of "Addiction Treatment: A
Strength's Perspective" (Wadsworth 2003).]
------------------
earle
*
--
__
__/\_\
/\_\/_/
\/_/\_\ earle
\/_/ jones
Robin Levett
Getting rid of Hussein was the easy part - why didn't the US have an exit
strategy? Because they never intended to exit?
>
> | The administration lied, either knowingly or unknowingly.
>
> There's no such thing as lying "unknowingly". Either they lied or they
> didn't. If they didn't know, then it wasn't a lie. There's a
> difference between not giving accurate information and lying.
So you accept that they lied knowingly?
>
>
> ~ Even worse, it
> | allowed an incompetent like Schroeder and a crook like Chirac to hold
> on to
> | power.
>
> These are the same two "allies" that we were supposed to hold off on
> attacking Iraq for, weren't they?
Can you tell the difference between a country and its president?
>
> | It has created a huge instability which may very well lead to an
> | Iranian puppet state in the south, a Kurdish state in the north which
> | will invite Turkish invasion or at least containment, and a central
> pseudo-state
> | that will likely be victimized by both north and south.
>
> That's why we're trying to get a strong central government in there. It
> may or may not happen, but several smaller states might be better in the
> long run than one state run by a tyrant.
Why wasn't this considered *before* smashing the state that existed? Why
does balkanising Iraq, which will lead to yet further unrest in turkey,
serve the interests of the West?
>
> |
> | The invasion of Iraq was a violation of International Law and has
> turned the
> | US into a rogue state.
>
> Based on what?
Based on the fact that the US and UK had no legal authority for invading
Iraq, presumably.
>
> ~ GWB seems to see himself as a man without limits,
> | and only now, when he is facing defeat in November is he trying to
> find some
> | way of getting somebody else involved.
>
> This simply isn't true. From the beginning, he tried to get other
> nations involved via the U.N.
Whaaattt? Absolutely untrue. Blair was only just able to persuade Bush to
go through the motions of seeking consensus within the Security Council.
He was going to go to war, on his own agenda and timing, no matter what.
> The problem was that France and Germany
> had vetoes in the security council, and, as you noted above, those are
> both corrupt governments with ties to the former Iraqi regime.
I don't notice the word "corrupt" in the descriptions above. And as other
posters have noted, the way Bush's brother's Secretary of State delivered
Florida to Bush is hardly an outstanding example of democracy.
>
> ~ He has severely damaged US
> | credibility abroad. The US isn't so strong that it has no need of
> friends,
> | and right now it doesn't have very many.
>
> I think this is an overly-simplified view of diplomacy. France and
> Germany aren't our "friends" right now because they see a political
> advantage in showing disdain for the U.S.
Words fail me.
> Our relations with Europe
> haven't suffered any meaningful damage. If you think they have, could
> you point to it?
Wha...?
<snippage>
>
>
> | Attacking Iraq simply ousted a dictator who could do little more than
> punish
> | his own people. He posed no meaningful threat to the United States,
> and had
> | not for over a decade. Yes, Hussein was sending cash to Palestinian
> suicide
> | bombers, but he certainly was not in bed with a religious fanatic like
> Osama
> | bin Laden.
>
> There are documented ties between al Qaeda and Iraq.
Cite them. The "documented" training camp was in territory outside
Hussein's control - and wasn't even genuine.
> (I'm *not* saying
> that Hussein had a direct role in 9/11.) I have no problem believing
> that both Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were capable of suppressing their
> mutual animosity for the sake of achieving a mutual goal.
Then you are a bigger fool than Bush. Worse than Husssein's secular
government were his religious pretensions.
> al Qaeda, in
> particular, showed its ability to switch from one enemy to another when
> they first kicked out the Soviet Union and then later attacked the
> United States.
And that has precisely what to do with the price of fish?
>
>
> ~ No one could be 100% sure that Hussein didn't have WMDs hidden
> | somewhere, but Blix and the UN certainly saw no evidence of any
> | quantities
> | sufficient to justify an invasion. It's difficult to use the sporadic
> | attacks on patrolling aircraft as an excuse for invasion, as this never
> | amounted to very much of a threat.
> |
>
> Even if the attacks on the planes themselves didn't pose a direct threat
> to the United States (which I don't concede, as attacks such as that
> could be seen as acts of war in themselves) those attacks showed
> Hussein's determination to keep the coalition forces out of that area,
> to give him free reign. Now, I don't particularly blame him for wanting
> ~ free reign in his own country, but it remains true that those attacks
> were violations of the ceasefire that he signed, and in themselves
> enough to justify military action.
Which was delivered; the US and UK used the excuse of the attacks to destroy
virtually the entirety of Iraq's air defence system.
>
> | In the end, the way international law is constituted, you cannot simply
> | invade countries because the guy running them are bad. If that is the
> | argument, then where are the vast armies marching into Zimbabwe to save
> | those people from a man willing to starve them to death just to get rid
> | of
> | white farmers and further keep his hold on power? If the US wishes to
> | put
> | forward a new policy where tyrants are deposed, then so be it. There
> | are other countries in the grips of very bad people, so go there too.
> |
>
> You can't just invade a country because you don't like the leader.
> That's an impractical way to run things.
Then why did Bush do so?
> (For one thing, not every
> leader we don't like is weak enough for us to take down.) But where the
> rewards for success are great enough, and the risk low enough, yes, we
> should try to do the right thing. Personally, I think the situation in
> the Sudan begs for our help more than in Zimbabwe. Whether our action
> in Iraq was worth it is for history to decide. The outcome isn't
> visible at this point, because we haven't reached the endpoint.
No - but I very much fear that the endpoint is going to be a far worse
situation than we see today; and I can see no sign that either the US or
British governments are either aware of this or trying to do something
about it.
Even the way Chalabi was dumped was handled to create the worst possible end
result.
--
Robin Levett
rle...@rlevett.ibmuklunix.net (unmunge by removing big blue - don't yahoo)
Michael Ikeda
news:rm3ob056a4g7gruin...@4ax.com:
> Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>AC wrote:
>>| It has created a huge instability which may very well lead to
>>| an Iranian puppet state in the south, a Kurdish state in the
>>| north which will invite Turkish invasion or at least
>>| containment, and a central
>>pseudo-state
>>| that will likely be victimized by both north and south.
>>
>>That's why we're trying to get a strong central government in
>>there. It may or may not happen,
>
> It won't happen the way Bush is going about it. Without a
> long-term military commitment on our part, any government put in
> now will quickly collapse. And such a military commitment will
> increase Arab antagonism to the US, and further erode what is
> left of our alliances.
>
Although we're so massively unpopular (at least south of
Kurdistan) that a clever transitional government might be able to
parlay public opposition to the U.S. into survivability without
our military presence.
Or, to put it another way, they might just manage to unite the
Iraqis against a common enemy. Too bad the common enemy is us...
--
Michael Ikeda mmi...@erols.com
"Telling a statistician not to use sampling is like telling an
astronomer they can't say there is a moon and stars"
Lynne Billard, past president American Statistical Association
AC
Michael Ikeda <mmi...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> Although we're so massively unpopular (at least south of
> Kurdistan) that a clever transitional government might be able to
> parlay public opposition to the U.S. into survivability without
> our military presence.
>
> Or, to put it another way, they might just manage to unite the
> Iraqis against a common enemy. Too bad the common enemy is us...
I think that they might be able to do that in the short term. But even if a
new Iraqi government were actually permitted to do such a thing, would that
mean Iraq would remain united the day after the last American soldier left
Iraqi soil?
The problem, as I see it, is that Iraq is a state only capable of existing
under military rule of one form or another. There is no deep roots of
unity, no real sense of nationhood. It is the latest in a sad exercise in
force-fed governments by a Great Power. Either it will disintegrate,
creating a horrific and untameable situation in the Middle East that will
make the Intifada look like a picnic, or American military might is going to
be replaced by some sort of home-grown strongman. Now maybe this guy will
be nicer than Saddam Hussein, but it would be a failure of the most collosal
proportions if all the US ended up doing was replacing a Very Bad Guy with a
Sorta Bad Guy.
Now, if the US, or whoever ends up inheriting this mess, decides to spend a
generation, then there's a chance. But the costs will be enormous. This is
GWB's second failing, to admit that a reasonable number of occupation isn't
ten years, but at least twice that long, if the claim that they want to make
Iraq into a shining beacon of democracy in the Middle East isn't more than
just post-hoc justification for an invasion that has thus far uncovered no
WMDs and no links to Al-qaeda.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
How are my posts "self-serving"? I don't consider this a personal
mission. I'm certainly not on any GOP payroll. As for the
"rationalizations", if you'd look back at the speeches made by the
administration, you'd see that the reasons for war that I gave were
exactly those the administration gave before the war. The
administration shifted to the WMD rationale in front of the U.N.,
because that's what was required to attempt to get U.N. support.
| I doubt Kerry would've sent 150,000 troops to the mid-east, which made
war a
| fait accompli.
I don't know about 150,000 troops, but it's highly unlikely that Kerry
would have been able to avoid sending troops to Iraq, given the events
since the start of the Bush presidency (thinking specifically now of
9/11 and the Afghanistan situation). My point, however, was that Kerry
doesn't have a different plan for *now*.
Once Bush did that there was no turning back. To pull out
| would've been an humiliation for Bush.
|
| Even if you forgave the Bush admin on the Iraq issue, Iraq was never an
| imminent threat to the US, and while it wanted nukes, had no means of
obtaining
| them, and played no role in global terrrorism.
First, Iraq *did* play a role in global terrorism. Not only were there
meetings between Iraqi intelligence officials and al Qaeda, but it's
well-known both that Hussein tried to have Bush I assassinated and that
he funded suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank. Second, Iraq could
have obtained nukes if either the sanctions were lifted (as they were
trying to get them lifted before the war) or if they obtained them from
a friendly nation (as they obtained weapons and equipment from Russia
before the war). There's simply no reason to believe that the Iraqi
regime wouldn't have obtained nukes. The only real question is how long
it would take them to obtain them once the sanctions were lifted if
Hussein was still in power.
|
| Sure, there were humanitarian reasons for getting rid of Saddam. But
given the
| way the war was conducted, its rather clear that humanitarian issues were
| simply cover.
Unfortunately, there isn't a way to conduct a war such that civilians
don't die. Having said that, it's clear that some effort was put
towards minimizing civilian casualties. Realistically, we don't fight
wars simply to free other nations. We do so to protect our own
interests. But I'll say again: Our own interests extend beyond keeping
the Iraqi navy from landing on our shores.
As I said before, I've got a lot of differences in opinion with the
current administration. But on this particular issue, the war itself
was the right thing to do, even if the post-war execution was lousy.
I could see myself voting for Kerry in November, but only if he managed
to get Lieberman or McCain to run with him.
|
| Stuart
| Dr. Stuart A. Weinstein
| Ewa Beach Institute of Tectonics
| "To err is human, but to really foul things up
| requires a creationist"
|
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Michael Ikeda
news:slrncbpuqn.2uo....@alder.alberni.net:
> On Tue, 1 Jun 2004 21:17:30 +0000 (UTC),
> Michael Ikeda <mmi...@erols.com> wrote:
>>
>> Although we're so massively unpopular (at least south of
>> Kurdistan) that a clever transitional government might be able
>> to parlay public opposition to the U.S. into survivability
>> without our military presence.
>>
>> Or, to put it another way, they might just manage to unite the
>> Iraqis against a common enemy. Too bad the common enemy is
>> us...
>
> I think that they might be able to do that in the short term.
> But even if a new Iraqi government were actually permitted to do
> such a thing, would that mean Iraq would remain united the day
> after the last American soldier left Iraqi soil?
>
It might. They're in a very dangerous neighborhood and their best
chance to survive is to remain reasonably united.
Just to clarify. I do NOT consider this a good outcome. I'm not
sure that anything we can do now will bring about anything that
can reasonably be described as a good outcome. It isn't as bad as
some plausible outcomes but the politics and policies of such an
Iraq are not going to be particularly pleasing to us. What we're
likely to get is something like a cross between Iran, Saudi
Arabia, and 1960's Lebanon. And that's if things go relatively
well...
(snipped)
Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
Some of what was reported has turned out to be true. There were links
drawn between al Qaeda and Iraq (including meetings between intelligence
officials and al Qaeda) and those have not been refuted or even
challenged. The only thing challenged in those reports is the depths of
the connections (i.e., whether there was an actual alliance), not the
meetings themselves, and not whether al Qaeda was allowed to operate in
the country. There were terrorist camps found in Iraq. Powell claimed
that Iraq harbored Zarqawi. And lo and behold, who did we find
operating in Iraq? Zarqawi. Now, the obvious retort to this is that al
Qaeda didn't come into Iraq until after the war, but given the unrefuted
information that we have, why is that the more likely scenario?
|
|
|>
|>~ No one could be 100% sure that Hussein didn't have WMDs hidden
|>| somewhere, but Blix and the UN certainly saw no evidence of any
quantities
|>| sufficient to justify an invasion. It's difficult to use the sporadic
|>| attacks on patrolling aircraft as an excuse for invasion, as this never
|>| amounted to very much of a threat.
|>|
|>
|>Even if the attacks on the planes themselves didn't pose a direct threat
|>to the United States (which I don't concede, as attacks such as that
|>could be seen as acts of war in themselves) those attacks showed
|>Hussein's determination to keep the coalition forces out of that area,
|>to give him free reign. Now, I don't particularly blame him for wanting
|>~ free reign in his own country, but it remains true that those attacks
|>were violations of the ceasefire that he signed, and in themselves
|>enough to justify military action.
|
|
| And the US had a decade in which to declare war.
And they should have declared war 10 years ago. I agree.
~ To wait a decade and then
| invade, without even the support of the Security Council might be
justified
| if there was evidence of some escalation.
Why, in your mind, is justification beyond violations of the original
ceasefire necessary? The Iraqis clearly violated not only the terms of
the ceasefire, but the terms of Resolution 1441.
| There was no such evidence.
| There was no justification.
|
See above.
|
|
|>| In the end, the way international law is constituted, you cannot simply
|>| invade countries because the guy running them are bad. If that is the
|>| argument, then where are the vast armies marching into Zimbabwe to save
|>| those people from a man willing to starve them to death just to get
rid of
|>| white farmers and further keep his hold on power? If the US wishes
to put
|>| forward a new policy where tyrants are deposed, then so be it.
There are
|>| other countries in the grips of very bad people, so go there too.
|>|
|>
|>You can't just invade a country because you don't like the leader.
|>That's an impractical way to run things.
|
|
| It seems to be the way the US did it.
|
|
|>(For one thing, not every
|>leader we don't like is weak enough for us to take down.)
|
|
| I'm sure 50,000 well-trained American soldiers would prove much more
than a
| match for Mugabe's "veterans".
Well, I was thinking more along the lines of North Korea with that
comment. As far as threats to our security go, that probably ranks higher.
|
|
|> But where the
|>rewards for success are great enough, and the risk low enough, yes, we
|>should try to do the right thing.
|
|
| Then I suggest you start a rallying cry to save Africa.
|
|
|>Personally, I think the situation in
|>the Sudan begs for our help more than in Zimbabwe. Whether our action
|>in Iraq was worth it is for history to decide. The outcome isn't
|>visible at this point, because we haven't reached the endpoint.
|
|
| I dunno. Zimbabwe is in for a rough ride. I'm sure that the US,
being such
| a wonderous power, interested only in helping the impoverished and
| oppressed, will aid those African nations as it has aided the Iraqis.
Maybe, maybe not. We interceded diplomatically in Sudan, but I don't
know if our national interests will be seen to lie in Zimbabwe.
|
| I won't hold my breath for that, or for an Iraq that doesn't require a
| flippin' army of tens of thousands to hold it together.
|
That's assuming that it *is* kept together. Iraq as a unified country
is a relatively modern thing. I'm not certain that it's better in its
present configuration. If it is, then it will *have to* make due
without an army of 10s of thousands.
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Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
Stanley Friesen wrote:
| Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
|
|>AC wrote:
|>| It has created a huge instability which may very well lead to an
|>| Iranian puppet state in the south, a Kurdish state in the north
which will
|>| invite Turkish invasion or at least containment, and a central
|>pseudo-state
|>| that will likely be victimized by both north and south.
|>
|>That's why we're trying to get a strong central government in there. It
|>may or may not happen,
|
|
| It won't happen the way Bush is going about it. Without a long-term
| military commitment on our part, any government put in now will quickly
| collapse. And such a military commitment will increase Arab antagonism
| to the US, and further erode what is left of our alliances.
|
|
|>but several smaller states might be better in the
|>long run than one state run by a tyrant.
|>
|
| Not if they are constantly at war with another and with Turkey.
|
True.
|>Even if the attacks on the planes themselves didn't pose a direct threat
|>to the United States (which I don't concede, as attacks such as that
|>could be seen as acts of war in themselves) those attacks showed
|>Hussein's determination to keep the coalition forces out of that area,
|>to give him free reign. Now, I don't particularly blame him for wanting
|>~ free reign in his own country, but it remains true that those attacks
|>were violations of the ceasefire that he signed, and in themselves
|>enough to justify military action.
|
|
| Yes. Too bad they were really mostly ignored when Bush was making his
| case for an invasion. He mentioned them rarely, and only in passing,
| never as a major justification.
|
The WMD case was only made for the U.N.'s benefit, because that was the
justification needed (or so they thought) to get the U.N. involved. I
agree that it was overplayed, though.
| The peace of God be with you.
|
| Stanley Friesen
|
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Brian Hartman
Hash: SHA1
Larry Moran wrote:
Fortunately, you don't need to trust him on that. Those attacks (which
also happened under the Clinton administration) are verifiable.
|
| Larry Moran
|
|
|
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Robin Levett
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> Hash: SHA1
>
> AC wrote:
> | On Tue, 1 Jun 2004 02:23:03 +0000 (UTC),
> | Brian Hartman <bhart...@comcast.net> wrote:
> |
> |>AC wrote:
<snippage>
> |>| Attacking Iraq simply ousted a dictator who could do little more than
> |>punish
> |>| his own people. He posed no meaningful threat to the United States,
> |>and had
> |>| not for over a decade. Yes, Hussein was sending cash to Palestinian
> |>suicide
> |>| bombers, but he certainly was not in bed with a religious fanatic like
> |>Osama
> |>| bin Laden.
> |>
> |>There are documented ties between al Qaeda and Iraq. (I'm *not* saying
> |>that Hussein had a direct role in 9/11.) I have no problem believing
> |>that both Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were capable of suppressing their
> |>mutual animosity for the sake of achieving a mutual goal. al Qaeda, in
> |>particular, showed its ability to switch from one enemy to another when
> |>they first kicked out the Soviet Union and then later attacked the
> |>United States.
> |
> |
> | The only documentation I've ever seen comes from highly dubious sources.
> | Most of Powell's speech to the UN was a flight of fancy. The American
> | people and the world were fed a load of exagerations and bullshit, my
> | friend.
>
> Some of what was reported has turned out to be true. There were links
> drawn between al Qaeda and Iraq (including meetings between intelligence
> officials and al Qaeda) and those have not been refuted or even
> challenged.
You have to be joking! Provide a cite for an unrefuted/unchallenged link.
> The only thing challenged in those reports is the depths of
> the connections (i.e., whether there was an actual alliance), not the
> meetings themselves, and not whether al Qaeda was allowed to operate in
> the country. There were terrorist camps found in Iraq.
Really? Cite please. The only (allegedly al Qaeda) terrorist camp named
before the war has since been found to be nothing of the sort - and was in
the Kurdish-controlled north of the country.
> Powell claimed
> that Iraq harbored Zarqawi. And lo and behold, who did we find
> operating in Iraq? Zarqawi. Now, the obvious retort to this is that al
> Qaeda didn't come into Iraq until after the war, but given the unrefuted
> information that we have, why is that the more likely scenario?
Which unrefuted information?
<snippage>
>
> ~ To wait a decade and then
> | invade, without even the support of the Security Council might be
> justified
> | if there was evidence of some escalation.
>
>
> Why, in your mind, is justification beyond violations of the original
> ceasefire necessary? The Iraqis clearly violated not only the terms of
> the ceasefire, but the terms of Resolution 1441.
So what? The Security Council is the competent body to determine whether
there have been violations of its resolutions, and to decide what action to
take; not individual states. The Charter clearly reserves that competence
to the Council. Don't believe me? RTFC - or read this thread:-
http://makeashorterlink.com/?U18745478
>
> | There was no such evidence.
> | There was no justification.
> |
> See above.
As he said - there was no evidence, there was no justification.
<snippage>
Robert Grumbine
Somewhat tongue in cheek:
What we could get is Iraq partitioned between Syria, Iran, and
Saudi Arabia. Give the Kurds to Syria, the Shia to Iran, and the
Sunni to Saudi Arabia. Then everybody is happy, right?
--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences