Posted on 09/10/2002 12:57:09 PM PDT by Zviadist
Congressman Ron Paul
U.S. House of Representatives
September 10, 2002
QUESTIONS THAT WON'T BE ASKED ABOUT IRAQ
Soon we hope to have hearings on the pending war with Iraq. I am concerned there are some questions that won’t be asked- and maybe will not even be allowed to be asked. Here are some questions I would like answered by those who are urging us to start this war.
1. Is it not true that the reason we did not bomb the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War was because we knew they could retaliate?
2. Is it not also true that we are willing to bomb Iraq now because we know it cannot retaliate- which just confirms that there is no real threat?
3. Is it not true that those who argue that even with inspections we cannot be sure that Hussein might be hiding weapons, at the same time imply that we can be more sure that weapons exist in the absence of inspections?
4. Is it not true that the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency was able to complete its yearly verification mission to Iraq just this year with Iraqi cooperation?
5. Is it not true that the intelligence community has been unable to develop a case tying Iraq to global terrorism at all, much less the attacks on the United States last year? Does anyone remember that 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and that none came from Iraq?
6. Was former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro wrong when he recently said there is no confirmed evidence of Iraq’s links to terrorism?
7. Is it not true that the CIA has concluded there is no evidence that a Prague meeting between 9/11 hijacker Atta and Iraqi intelligence took place?
8. Is it not true that northern Iraq, where the administration claimed al-Qaeda were hiding out, is in the control of our "allies," the Kurds?
9. Is it not true that the vast majority of al-Qaeda leaders who escaped appear to have safely made their way to Pakistan, another of our so-called allies?
10. Has anyone noticed that Afghanistan is rapidly sinking into total chaos, with bombings and assassinations becoming daily occurrences; and that according to a recent UN report the al-Qaeda "is, by all accounts, alive and well and poised to strike again, how, when, and where it chooses"
11. Why are we taking precious military and intelligence resources away from tracking down those who did attack the United States- and who may again attack the United States- and using them to invade countries that have not attacked the United States?
12. Would an attack on Iraq not just confirm the Arab world's worst suspicions about the US- and isn't this what bin Laden wanted?
13. How can Hussein be compared to Hitler when he has no navy or air force, and now has an army 1/5 the size of twelve years ago, which even then proved totally inept at defending the country?
14. Is it not true that the constitutional power to declare war is exclusively that of the Congress? Should presidents, contrary to the Constitution, allow Congress to concur only when pressured by public opinion? Are presidents permitted to rely on the UN for permission to go to war?
15. Are you aware of a Pentagon report studying charges that thousands of Kurds in one village were gassed by the Iraqis, which found no conclusive evidence that Iraq was responsible, that Iran occupied the very city involved, and that evidence indicated the type of gas used was more likely controlled by Iran not Iraq?
16. Is it not true that anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 US soldiers have suffered from Persian Gulf War syndrome from the first Gulf War, and that thousands may have died?
17. Are we prepared for possibly thousands of American casualties in a war against a country that does not have the capacity to attack the United States?
18. Are we willing to bear the economic burden of a 100 billion dollar war against Iraq, with oil prices expected to skyrocket and further rattle an already shaky American economy? How about an estimated 30 years occupation of Iraq that some have deemed necessary to "build democracy" there?
19. Iraq’s alleged violations of UN resolutions are given as reason to initiate an attack, yet is it not true that hundreds of UN Resolutions have been ignored by various countries without penalty?
20. Did former President Bush not cite the UN Resolution of 1990 as the reason he could not march into Baghdad, while supporters of a new attack assert that it is the very reason we can march into Baghdad?
21. Is it not true that, contrary to current claims, the no-fly zones were set up by Britain and the United States without specific approval from the United Nations?
22. If we claim membership in the international community and conform to its rules only when it pleases us, does this not serve to undermine our position, directing animosity toward us by both friend and foe?
23. How can our declared goal of bringing democracy to Iraq be believable when we prop up dictators throughout the Middle East and support military tyrants like Musharaf in Pakistan, who overthrew a democratically-elected president?
24. Are you familiar with the 1994 Senate Hearings that revealed the U.S. knowingly supplied chemical and biological materials to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and as late as 1992- including after the alleged Iraqi gas attack on a Kurdish village?
25. Did we not assist Saddam Hussein’s rise to power by supporting and encouraging his invasion of Iran? Is it honest to criticize Saddam now for his invasion of Iran, which at the time we actively supported?
26. Is it not true that preventive war is synonymous with an act of aggression, and has never been considered a moral or legitimate US policy?
27. Why do the oil company executives strongly support this war if oil is not the real reason we plan to take over Iraq?
28. Why is it that those who never wore a uniform and are confident that they won’t have to personally fight this war are more anxious for this war than our generals?
29. What is the moral argument for attacking a nation that has not initiated aggression against us, and could not if it wanted?
30. Where does the Constitution grant us permission to wage war for any reason other than self-defense?
31. Is it not true that a war against Iraq rejects the sentiments of the time-honored Treaty of Westphalia, nearly 400 years ago, that countries should never go into another for the purpose of regime change?
32. Is it not true that the more civilized a society is, the less likely disagreements will be settled by war?
33. Is it not true that since World War II Congress has not declared war and- not coincidentally- we have not since then had a clear-cut victory?
34. Is it not true that Pakistan, especially through its intelligence services, was an active supporter and key organizer of the Taliban?
35. Why don't those who want war bring a formal declaration of war resolution to the floor of Congress?
Among your many weaknessess one_particular_harbor, is a severe case of compartmentalized thinking. I presume that you believe it will provide you with safety and security.
Some day you should venture out of your snug harbor and take in the view from the open ocean....
It's more like being able to see the forest for the trees; all roads, so to speak, do not lead to abortion.
LOL.
What contempt you must have for us. But isn't that the way it always goes? Capture, gut and stuff the language. And then capture, gut and stuff the people.
America---the Last Remaining Super-Taxidermist on Earth.
...As with ...
...As with ...
As with many other arguments on this forum, you, one_particualar_harbor and others of your ilk are so very transparent.
The sentence was modified by as with. It was not subsumed by that modification---EXCEPT for those who have another adgenda.
So, for the benefit of those who cannot seem to think outside the box:
....The discovery of a clean, well-lighted place to do the work is one of the most horrifying facts of modern American life. No blood can ever upset our view at 14,000 feet---the favorite bombing altitude of our high-tech humanitarian armed forces. Not even the blood of Jesus..... Yea verily, we are truly liberated.....
Especially when you review the Freeper creed, the raison d'etre of this website:
Weird, huh?
Aaah ... precisely the context for which I was searching.
The right to life and the fact that all men are created equal ... whether they be Planned or unwanted, perfect or deformed, intelligent or stupid, black or white, male or female ... being one such principle that, had we adhered to it inflexibly, would have saved us the evil that is "women's" rights, "black" rights, "homosexual" rights or affirmative action ... the quotas and diversity by which we hire, fire, pay, promote and downsize by sex, skin, orientation, age, etc.
I too think the libertarians (particularly the big-L sorts) lack a realistic approach. Their lack of discerning on the drug issue being one aspect. They are not the least interest in the communist source of the scourge and -- though they quite rightly recognize the government for the complicit and corrupt enabler it is -- they refuse to draw a distinction between the import of red cocaine and heroin (which by rights should be an executable offense ... even if you're the wife of a US drug war Colonel bringing home some smack souvenir from Colombia) and the right of communities to restrict and even prohibit the domestic drugs (including marijuana) they do not wish to have manufactured, sold or consumed in their community for purposes of self defense and financial injury.
In that respect, they often remind me of leftists, particularly the New Left even though most (including the proudly atheist and agnostic among them) still are "christianized" such that they do not have the courage to actually follow their logic (or lack of same) to its ultimate conclusions:
| If we now ask why the New Left has not developed a constructive program, a blueprint, a utopia all its own, we find several reasons. We already alluded to the fact that mankind today is not "futuristic" [as evidenced primarily by their aversion to having children] and that the typical New Lefter lacks all family sense, all generational vistas. Also, curiously enough, a certain rather anti-ideological substatrum can be observed in the New Left and , consequently, a real aversion to produce a precise program. Any program already smacks of "prescription" in the Kirkian sense. Whenever I asked young New Lefters about their New Order the answer was that this problem is to be settled by discussion after "victory". Debate and discussion – they are the delight of the ill-prepared, inexperienced, unread theoretician. Talking to a group of Catholic Bolivian students of the New Left persuasion about their vision of a "New Bolivia," I found that their only immediate aim was the destruction of the entire old order. Unpleasantly winking, they told me that it would not be difficult to occupy the waterworks of the city of La Paz, as well as the electric plants, and thus force the surrender of the capital. And what if the government was not going to yield? What about the 400,000 inhabitants? Would they not have to leave the city? What would happen to the hospitals? The insane asylums? The homes for the aged? They could not have cared less. Liberation always has a high price. And the new order? That would be debated, discussed. The whole student movement from Tierra del Fuego to Tokyo and Berlin is characterized by the shortsightedness and the cruelty of youth. [16] To be sure, certain external reasons made this large-scale rebellion altogether possible. In many parts of the world a degree of prosperity reigns which most of us have not become used to. Before World War II students had to study very hard and frequently also to work. Today they have parents willing to shell it out for them. And this all the more so, as these have abdicated morally and intellectually Whatever their conviction, they frequently see in the Left the "Wave of the Future" and thus are afraid, unprepared, and unwilling to criticize the views of their enthusiastic progeny. Not only have they, without any true religious convictions, parroted the precepts of Christian ethics, often paying mere lip service without living up to them, they have also failed politically. In America the generation of parents and grandparents died on battlefields all over the world only to usher in an age of deadly fear of an atomic World War III. In Germany, one grandfather has betrayed the Kaiser, the other the Weimar Republic , the father Adolph Hitler. The young men in Germany have become, in the words of Armin Mohler, die Richterknaben, the "boy-judges" who sit in judgment over their fathers. [17] An analogous situation exists in Italy, Spain, France, Japan and Austria. And now these rather despised but prosperous fathers tend to buy the affection of their offspring with permissiveness and hard cash. Thus the young generation of the middle and upper classes is given "freedom" when they are most in need of guidance and authority, and the means of enabling them to loaf, demonstrate, and smoke pot rather than study and work. Without strong ideals (religious or other) young men and women of considerable vitality will almost automatically become "rebels without a cause" and, if imbued with purely negative and critical ideas lacking a concrete aim, they will surrender to purely destructive instincts. [18] Vandalism and nihilism of a physical or intellectual order will be the result. This goes hand in hand with a process of depersonalization. Eros is replaced by mere sex and the debasement of sex assumes a cardinal role in the New Left "philosophy"; by destroying "taboos" it strikes at the very roots of life. [19] The negation of all ties ends in promiscuity, in a flight from life through drugs, and in a consuming hatred for every form of organic existence. [20] Nihilism is diabolism since everything created by God or man has a positive value. Satan thrives on nothingness, on not-being. [21] Old classic leftism likes to destroy but only in order to replace the memories of the past with a vision of the future. It aims at the establishment of a cast-iron order, at symmetry, at monolithic sameness: The young New Left, on the contrary, delights in disorder and chaos. An "authoritarian person" might be neatly dressed and scrupulously clean [22], whereas the typical representative of the New Left loves sloppiness, informality and the reflection of his mental disorderliness on his appearance, in his entire way of life. His parents worshipped the Golden Calf. He venerates the Golden Swine. [23] |
Excerpt from a post I'm working on by Erik von Kuennelt-Leddihn taken from his book "LEFTISM ... from DeSade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse"
Funny how you contort when you cannot face the question. Again: you asserted to the following statement:
Iraq does not have the capability to launch an attack on the United States
The following:
9/11 notwithstanding.And I asked you to tell me who is seriously making that claim. You have not been able to answer for over 600 posts. So...you change the subject and contort. But you never provide an answer to your asinine assertion that Iraq was behind -- or involved -- in 9/11. Armchair, video-game warriors like you don't even want any evidence before you send our men and women in uniform into harm's way. Some patriot you are.
I'd much rather be transparent than 100 miles wide and 1/4 inch deep.
Read the article.
And by the way, it was written by someone who volunteered for the military during the Vietnam era -- you remember, that time when all the current warhawks developed mysterious conditions that didn't allow them to serve their country?
Everyone's a big hero on the internet.
Two weeks earlier, Star editorial writer James Patterson wrote that Indiana Rep. Dan Burton’s House Government Reform Committee had spent some of the August congressional recess "sniffing around” Oklahoma City looking for reasons to believe that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols had help.
"They found plenty,” Patterson reported.
The fact that Atta was located in Virginia and then in Florida shortly before and after the reported meeting has caused much of the media to dismiss the story. Two things about that:
A high Bush administration official was quoted in the August 2 Los Angles Times as saying evidence of the meeting "holds up.”
Czech officials have insisted the meeting took place. They subsequently expelled the Iraqi diplomat.
Further, the Wall Street Journal cites several reported contacts between the Iraqis and the al-Qaeda terrorist network, something that CIA Director George Tenet has confirmed in congressional testimony.
Espionage writer Edward Jay Epstein reports on his website that an Iraqi defector has stated that Iraqi intelligence has trained groups on how to hijack planes without weapons.
Editorialist Micah Morrison, in his Wall Street Journal piece, credits Davis and Mylroie as having "looked very hard for fire” in the "Iraq connection.” That connection "remains a speculative possibility,” Morrison adds, "but a possibility that needs to be put on the table in a serious way.”
Such as a hearing soon by Congressman Burton’s House committee?
As the U.S. notes the anniversary of the biggest terror attack so far —Sept.11 - President Bush is contemplating going to war with Iraq. Some believe he has already decided. If any or all three of the murderous attacks can be traced to Saddam Hussein, the question of whether the U.S. is justified in pursuing that course then becomes academic. At that point, the smoking gun having been found, the argument is settled. The debate ends. It means war.
Read it and weep.
The fetal extermination industry is constructed upon a foundation of astounding, mind-bending euphemism. As is always the case with euphemism--the word designed to mask the reality is often more grotesque than the orginal, blunt word. Think, for example, of all the euphemisms for s**t. Without exception they all seem dirtier and more unhealthy than just plain s**t.
The same society that has built a gargantuan temple of A Woman's Right To Choose on a foundation of fetal remains ALSO bombs civilians and calls it Humanitarianism; Spreading Democracy; Planting Free Markets.
You should re-read some of the war-talk that went on during the Civil War, for example; or any war, for that matter, before the advent of the eupemism A woman's right to choose. The bluntness of the language is almost refreshing.
Language connects apparently unrelated instituions in a society in mysterious, profound ways. Like alders they have roots underground. A tree on one side of the stream is bound up--at the root--to an apparently separate tree way over on the other side.
Oh...well that settles it. Bombs away! There is a "speculative possibility"!!! There is also a "speculative possibility" that I might win the lottery. Should I begin purchasing automobiles?
And you cite Mylroie as your source???? Do you know anything about that lunatic?
Read the article.
I did it is not in there.
And by the way, it was written by someone who volunteered for the military during the Vietnam era -- you remember, that time when all the current warhawks developed mysterious conditions that didn't allow them to serve their country?
Can you point out Rumsfeld's Vietnam condition?
Nice touch on the "shoot the messenger"
Indeed and agreed. The POINT is, that thus far that has not happened. There has been no trace made. On the contrary, a knowledge of that part of the world and an understanding of recent history point to the likely impossibility of any contact between Saddam and Osama, who hate each other probably as much as they hate us. But then I don't expect you to understand anything about the region. Just to scream for more bombing.
What level of proof do you want: proof beyond all doubt (smoking gun), proof beyond a reasonable doubt (criminal case standard), weight of evidence (civil suit), probable cause (search warrant)?
And just to make sure, what would this proof consist of?
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