VARMINT CONG ALERT!!!
REPEL BOARDERS!!!
Posted on 02/19/2003 4:20:58 AM PST by Michael B
Edited on 02/19/2003 6:30:17 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Five important reasons why I don't support a non-UN-backed war on Iraq:
1. Such a war can only lead to an increase in terrorism. The Iraqis, arabs and muslims around the world will see such a war not only as a war on Islam, but also for what it mostly is about - an imperialistic grab for oil. Anyone doubting this need only consider Iraq's history. The CIA played a hand in overthrowing the government in Iraq in 1963 which led to Saddam's party and thus Saddam himself coming to power. The reason was that the government had moved to nationalise oil (exactly the same thing also happened in Iran). Going back further also gives a long history of the colonial power Britain treating Iraq atrociously in order to control their oil.
Anyone still doubting that oil is a motive behind the war need only consider the Bush Administration's deep ties with the oil industry, read about the English and US oil companies already lobbying over who gets to drill the Iraqi oil (Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world), or consider that a result of the war in Afghanistan was the US finally getting to build a pipeline through the country, or that high oil prices are currently threatening the US economy and could be reliably kept significantly lower if the US were to control Iraq's oil.
2. There are no proven links between Saddam and the Al-Qaeda. The best intelligence agencies (those of the US and Britain) in the world have been working flat out to try and find one, yet both reported no link (despite this fact, both Bush and Blair repeatedly cite information discredited by their own intelligence agencies as evidence of a link - if they are so convinced of the case for war they shouldn't need to lie in presenting it). British intelligence reports that even the possibility of a substantial link is unlikely, given that Osama is in ideological conflict with Saddam (in a recent tape Osama termed Saddam and his regime 'infidels').
3. Before the UN sanctions Saddam had created a country with the one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East. At least for his own people he had thus done a better job than most other Middle Eastern leaders, and now we're supposed to be saving his people from him? I'm not saying Saddam is all good, far from it, but he is far from the evil tyrant Bush depicts him to be (i.e. he did not gas his own people as Bush repeatedly claims).
Worth also noting is that the reason an estimated 5000-6000 children die due to starvation and lack of water and medication in Iraq every week is not Saddam or even the UN sanctions, but the fact that the US and UK have blocked the efforts of the oil-for-food program. The two successive UN leaders of the oil-for-food program resigned due to this fact, saying that Saddam had done his best to provide his people with food, and calling what the US and UK were doing 'genocide'.
4. The threat that Iraq poses to us is tiny. Iraq probably still has some 'weapons of mass destruction' of course, but an insignificant amount which pales in comparison to that of many other countries (including of course the US and Britain, but also less stable places such as Syria and the nuclear states of North Korea, Pakistan, India and Israel).
Saddam has never been a threat to or threatened the US. This brings into question not only the motives for the war but also whether there is any right by international law to initiate one. Saddam's army was pathetic in the Gulf War and is much weaker now. Even CIA Director George Tenet's believes that the probability of Saddam Hussein initiating an attack on the United States is low, however 'should Saddam Hussein conclude that a US-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions'.
Saddam gives no evidence to being the irrational madman that Bush paints him to be (except perhaps when pushed into a corner as mentioned above and as evidenced by him firing missiles at Israel during the first Gulf War). His war on Iran was backed by the US, as was initially his invasion of Kuwait. If we are truly concerned about chemical and biological weapons, we might ask why the US has recently undermined the Chemical Weapons Convention by restricting inspections in the US, killed the Biological Weapons Convention and refused to sign an International Treaty banning germ warfare. We might also ask why the US had to edit Iraq's weapons declaration before releasing it to the public, removing 150 American, British and other foreign companies from it who illegally supplied Iraq's WMD in the first place.
5. The US has a deplorable record of foreign intervention over the past 50 years. One need only look at all the well documented case of democratic governments that have been overthrown by CIA covert action and replaced with dictators (i.e. Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Iran, Indonesia), or the US's blatant ignoring of the World Court (i.e. in the case of the World Court's ruling of $17 billion in damages to Nicaragua for damages incurred in the US's illegal war on it) and other world organisations' rulings or treaties. Such a country has no right to be playing global cop, and when it does we all end up worse off.
[AM here: I recommend this piece as a rebuttal.]
Before dismissing it, please note that the website (http://www.bevin.de) also contains a heap of references backing up what the essay argues.
-All Terror, All the Time-- FR's links to NBC Warfare, Terror, and More...--
-Jihad! Across the World....--
-The Fire Down South...( Latin America--)--
REPEL BOARDERS!!!
It's nice to oppose something "on principle" but did you take the real world situation into account? Since we can't negotiate with terrorists, the only way to stop them is a painstaking system of eradication and making it clear to all countries that if they support (or turn a blind eye) to terrorist type activities, they will have a price to pay...
We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe."
"My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time... Go home and get a nice quiet sleep."
Neville Chamberlain
And after you finish reading that, then try to refute it on that thread.
Maybe short term. But in the long run, eliminating the harbors for vermin reduces their numbers. Driving them from their havens makes it easier to kill them.
There are no proven links between Saddam and the Al-Qaeda.
There don't have to be. We declared war on terrorism, not al-Qaida. There are more terrorist organizations than bin Laden's.
Before the UN sanctions Saddam had created a country with the one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East.
So? We never said we would pursue terrorists only into those countries who live in mud huts. It's just as easy to bomb a brick building as a yurt. And a developed nation has much more to lose. It's what the military calls a "target-rich environment."
The threat that Iraq poses to us is tiny.
The threat Hitler posed to the US was tiny too. However, his threat to humanity was more than we could bear.
The US has a deplorable record of foreign intervention over the past 50 years.
"Deplorable" by whose standards? We have installed regimes around the world that were friendly to American interests, and thereby prevented all-out war while still protecting ourselves. That isn't a particularly dismal record. And even if we've made mistakes, our record isn't as lamentable as that of the socialists and petty tyrants we've deposed.
There's never a Pinochet around when you need one.
1. Such a war can only lead to an increase in terrorism.Nonsense. Terrorism has existed, and will continue to exist and flourish, in the absense of terrorism. Unless the bombing of that nightclub was a result of Australian agression.
Anyone still doubting that oil is a motive behind the war need only consider the Bush Administration's deep ties with the oil industry,More gibberish. If the Bush family wanted to steal middle east oil, we would have done so when we liberated Kuwait. We didn't, and we won't this time either.
2. There are no proven links between Saddam and the Al-Qaeda.There are, however, proven links between Saddam and terrorism in general. There is a war against terror, not a war against just Al-Qaeda.
3. Before the UN sanctions Saddam had created a country with the one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East.Without getting into the accuracy of the assertion, I will point out that your argument basically is that if a tyrant provides a high standard of living for his people, it matters not what atrocities he commits or what international laws he flaunts. Nice moral high ground there.
4. The threat that Iraq poses to us is tiny. Iraq probably still has some 'weapons of mass destruction' of course,I assume that when we get done with Iraq and then focus on North Korea, you will then be on board and not complaining about expanding US imperialism? One target at a time. When we dispatch Saddam, we will see if North Korea has gotten the message. And by the way, the time to take care of an emerging threat is when it is emerging, not after. Bill Clinton would have done well to realize this in his mishandling of North Korea.
5. The US has a deplorable record of foreign intervention over the past 50 years.The Eastern European nations freed from the grip of the Soviet Bloc would disagree with you, as would the people of Grenada.
And one more thing.
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| ZOT!!!! |
Terrorism has existed, and will continue to exist and flourish, in the absense of terrorismIn the absense of war.
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