Zar

There are people on the ground able to inspect these sites and they are doing so. Verification by international agencies is also available. Its not just foot soldiers.

I honestly cannot make any sense out of this mangled sentence, but it sounds pretty bad.

The "free Iraqis" thing is no good reason to start a war with another country. Whose "freedom" justifies an offensive war on that basis alone? Every aggresive power talks of freedom. It has belatedly, very belatedly, become the main reason since the others had so little weight.

And no, I do not want Iraq to have WMDs. Inspections were for that. But then, I don't want anyone to have them, for that matter. We can talk about non-proliferation someplace else, but attacking everyone you don't like who doesn't have them seems problematic for this issue.

Although this is another strange sentence, I have to ask: What the heck are you talking about? Who is making that case?

If you take what we're taught in history for granted, WW II had clear aggressor nations, like Germany, who unjustly STARTED the war. Striking back at Germany's overt aggression was justified. Whether or not it was the place of the United States to get involved is at least debatable, but there is no question of who started the problem. What is so hard to understand about that and what does it have to do with the current situation?

Perhaps you are asking, "If we knew the Holocaust was happening, should we have attacked on that basis alone?" I don't think the extent of the Holocaust was known until quite late, but I say no. We should have put great economic and diplomatic pressure on Germany instead of letting our industries and financial institutions feed the Nazi war machine though. The world could have cooperated in this. We could have done more things to give the Jews a fighting chance, perhaps by training or helping them in some way short of attacking Germany. But we wouldn't be talking about all-out world war in this case.

Also, what do we think of our ally, Turkey, which killed 1.5 million Armenians in 1915-16? What do we think of our ally Indonesia, which killed hundreds of thousands of East Timorese under our watch and increasing military support? Did we attack Rwanda during its horrible civil wars?

The world is full of atrocities and civil wars. Do we attack every country that has something like this? No way. It is a concept that is impossible to implement, and easy to abuse. I think all you have to do is not partake in it and not give support to such things. In a few cases, you can even broker a deal.

What I want readers to understand is that advocating war on any country simply because it has repression or civil strife is a NEW CONCEPT and should not be passed off as if it is some tried and true ancient principle that is being broken by those who oppose it. It is rather the imposition of a new international norm of interventionism, and in the case of the U.S. an even worse thing -- unilateral interventionism.

Happy Wonderer

Um, wasn't the point of this war to keep weapons of mass destruction from terrorists? What would be the most valuable thing that a looter could find right now? Wouldn't it be a nice little box with the word "Nuclear Weapon" or "Caution: Smallpox distribution kit" on it? I think certain well-heeled fanatics that I have heard of would pay a lot for such a thing...

So we don't have time -- unless he didn't have any weapons of mass destruction that could threaten us!

hw

Zar

I found an interesting quote from John Quincy Adams from an Independence Day speech in 1821:

Regardless of what you think the requirements of the "modern" world are, I think these are words worth pondering.

Cap'n Jack

I thought that the US wanted to have its own inspection teams to go through Iraq with a fine toothed comb, not too many people liked this idea for the obvious possibility of "placing" evidence. I believe it was mentioned before the war began. So at a guess the Armed forces are to be used to secure control over the country and if they come across anything they think is suspicious then radio it in.

peacenik

Originally posted by Kosh
Sure, why don't you check out this article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer



We don't even know how old these buried "mobile labs" are yet do we? Aren't you the one jumping to conclusions here based on your belief in the Bush administration propoganda.



I realize that the Gulf War occurred in 1991. In my earlier post I mistyped when I wrote that most of Iraq's weapons were destroyed in the 1980s; I intended to type that most of the weapons were destroyed in the 1990s. I apologize for the error, but at the time I was in a hurry because I had other more important things to finish.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0721-02.htm

http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kamel.html

Sure, it is always possible to rebuild weapons facilities that have been destroyed, but given the degree of disaray that it is now apparent that Saddam's regime was in before we ever decided to invade, it would be highly unlikely.

Do you acknowledge that when Bush or Cencom makes a statement and presents forged documents, http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/14/sprj.irq.documents/ , to support their "statement" that the statement may not necessarily be accurate, or do you just willingly accept every thing they tell you?

Cap'n Jack

Surely it would have helped Saddam Hussain strengthen his case had he declared these sites to the UN inspectors, making it even harder for the US/UK to justify the war.

Optional

Sure. However, if it does happen, it will be some time before I am proven wrong.

Merely finding chems or bios won't do it. I freely admit they may exist somewhere, although with every passing day it seems to get more unlikely.

I will be proven wrong when an Iraqi government is formed and put in power and successfully rules which is NOT an american puppet. If the new govt is anti-american in tone, or immediately denounces Israel, or starts awarding lucrative contracts and oil deals to non-american companies, well then, mea culpa.

If Iraq is the last ME country that we use our military force on, mea culpa.

If we actually pour enough money into Iraq to get it back on its feet, mea culpa.

If this war ends up actually decreasing terrorist activity and increasing stability in arab lands, mea maxima culpa.

I hope any or all of that turns out to be true, I really and truly do.

But I ain't holding my breath.

-me

peacenik

Saddam could have declared every last piece of ammunition in Iraq that he was truly aware of, freed all of his political prisoners, and scheduled elections within 6 months and George Bush would have still found an excuse to occupy, hgmm, I mean "liberate" Iraq.

CALDONIA

What troubles me is that the objection of the anti-War on Iraq crowd against the "ends justify the means" doctrine is incomprehensible to the cheerleaders for Iraqi liberation. This doctrine validates the Inquisition and the Holocaust.

The "end" to be achieved may be malevolent and arrived at via benevolent actions, the end may also be beneficial but gained through malevolent actions. I think the latter applies to the current situation in Iraq.

I laugh when I read or hear of how the U.S. should not have "ignored" the appeasement policy adopted by most of Europe toward Hitler's political aggression. We KNEW all that was going on and decided it was not our problem. While Roosevelt started moblization on the sly it was not until the Pearl Harbor attack that the public got behind his wish to fight Hitler/Japan.

Therefore, I am quite skeptical about our professed mission to "free" Iraqis from Hussein. We know it is a lie, and judging from some of the antipathy of Bagdadians toward "our troops," our 'little brown brothers' feel the same.

Ion

No?

How come?

Are you going to war without the "...need to vindicate the reason you go to war in order to justify war."?

Tell your claim to Bush, because he hasn't thought of this and your claim is a 'good reason' to send you to war, without reason for you:

he was yelling within 48 hours of attacking Iraq, that "Iraq must disarm.";
but gee, after four weeks of the U.S. overturning Iraq in do-or-die fights, there are no Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction even when Hussein's power would be saved if there were for his use;
this makes Bush a public (in U.N. and in U.S.) liar;
see how Bush is switching now to 'liberating Iraqis' in spite of Islamic protests against Bush's kind of 'liberation';
this 'liberation' Bush business, makes Bush a liar one more time.

No wonder Bush and U.N. are at odds.

You know what?

Help Bush with your claim, so that when he is now running out of lies, he can hide his war and profit real motivations of the religious thick-head he has -which is preyed upon by U.S. neo-conservatives Wolfowitz and Perle from P.N.A.C.-, behind your 'brilliant' claim.
Then he can send people like you to war, without reason for you.

My interest would still remain to expose these lies, though.
Sorry.