Posted on 09/17/2002 10:40:57 AM PDT by vannrox
See also, Stockholm Syndrome, Patty Hearst, Robert Fisk.
Author needs professional help.
That gets my nomination for Quote of the Day...
Bzzt! Wrong. You can choose war by sticking with the dictator, or you can choose peace by refusing to support the dictator.
Well WJC I suppose! GHWB lost his 2nd term when he lost the propaganda war: 'what about domestic politics?'. In the four years of WJC's first term, not much media attention was given to the Iraqi situation. No progress was really being made. The same tactic used against GHWB could have been used against WJC: 'What about foreign affairs? What is going on in Iraq?. Iraqis may not have died off in droves as many believe (propaganda.. Whatever) but in either case we ought to be more responsible. You can't just kill the bully and become the next bully and expect them to run to you with open arms. What happened to us? We just decided to sit on the bench while Iraqis suffered needlessly for 8 or more years?
When GHWB lost to WJC, so did the war. If COTUS had made a declaration of war it could have put the screws into any administration to press it into completion. Declaration of war is effective. If your going to war, make war the right way. Huge words on the times reading "Congress Declares War" mobilizes the nation with common objectives, a clear target, and a sense of its end would be like (i.e.. Victory). It is WJC's fault that he didn't care about the Iraqi's, it was GHWBr's *mistake* of settling with half-assed legal mumbo jumbo and faux authority of the UN. Iraq isn't even in the UN. Its neighbors aren't in the UN. Iraq didn't attack a UN affiliated nation! W! Don't make this mistake again! COTUS is damn'ed if they don't declare war, not you!.... If they have the brains to write "The Congress of the United States Declares War on Iraq today on the nineteenth of July this year of two thousand and two." W can do the rest. IF COTUS does not declare war and we get hit by a WMD, they are to blame not POTUS.
More importantly, the Iraqi's situation wasn't expounded much in the media. The public didn't care because the public wasn't informed. Imagine being under 10 years of sanctions, while the government is the enemy of thought, and the international community imposes rules that punish civilians more than Saddam personally. Who builds 29 palaces (or whatever)... Saddam has survived many coup attempts and I don't think an unarmed populace such as the Iraqis should be to blame for its totalitarian government. Especially when you can't buy guns legally in the market!
If Iraqis have modern medicine and manufacturing, its in spite of the dictator not because of him. They are pretty resourceful, perhaps an up and coming nation. At least compared to their neighbors! They don't have to be sworn enemies. Or at least they didn't have to be. 20/20 hind sight looks so clear. Especially when I was only 13 when Desert Storm started.
Do on to others as you would have done on to you. And as the latines would say "don't do on the others as you would not wish it done to you" (I'm poorly quoting from Hobbe's Leviathan).
I found this funny. thanks to our superior technology, we were able to attack Saddam's army without endangering our own men. We only lost 160 or so men and women in Gulf War
... we are now supposed to feel sympathy for the members of Saddam's army for that fact, even though they invaded Kuwait???. Liberal Guardian logic. ... our cause would be so much more noble if we let them kill some more of our soldiers, eh???
All the more reason to get rid of Saddam. to him, his own people's lives are expendible.
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