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Posted on 10/02/2002 1:35:30 PM PDT by GHOST WRITER
Wednesday, October 2, 2002 by Charley Reese
Israeli General Disagrees with Bush
An Israeli general strongly disagrees with the Bush administration about the dangers posed by Saddam Hussein. For those of you who love Israel, I thought you might be interested in this viewpoint.
"The Bush administration has no solid grounds for waging war on Saddam Hussein, and the arguments about the variety of risks Saddam poses are exaggerated," wrote Brig. Gen. (res.) Aharon Levran in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper well worth reading. It's on the Internet in English.
The general points out in his commentary that the United States is attributing to Saddam the same motives today that he had before the Gulf War. This is a mistake, the general says, because "His ambitions since the war (the first Gulf War) are curtailed. His limited aims are to protect Iraq and deter others from harming it and — of course — survive ... a brutal and crafty despot, Saddam has proved to be careful and sane in his moves."
The general says Saddam has no nuclear weapons, and even though he might have some chemical or biological weapons, he has shown restraint in the past in using them. He did not use them, for example, when he was defeated and driven out of Kuwait; and even during the Iran-Iraq war, he restricted their use.
I should add here that during the Iran-Iraq war, both Iran and Iraq used chemical weapons, just as the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany used them in World War I. The only time Saddam used them on the Kurds was when the Kurds decided to fight with Iran. Furthermore, at that time, the United States was actively assisting Saddam and did not — I repeat, did not — raise a stink over the use of chemical weapons.
As for British Prime Minister Tony Blair's so-called dossier, it did not impress anybody. Pat Buchanan had the most telling comment about it: "It proves the fax lines between Washington and London are working." In other words, it was a propaganda product concocted by Bush and Blair.
Why Blair and Bush persist in exaggerating the threat of Saddam to the point of trying to justify an invasion, I believe, boils down to oil. Iraq has the second-largest known oil reserves in the world, next to Saudi Arabia. At the present time, British and American oil companies are out in the cold. Saddam has deals with French and Russian companies.
Once the United States and Britain install a stooge government, then, of course, they, as the power behind the throne, will decide which companies get kicked out of Iraq and which ones get to profit from Iraq's oil. They will also decide which companies get the lucrative construction contracts for rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure.
What I'm saying, quite frankly, is that that Bush and Blair are lying through their teeth. That's harsh, but one ought to be harsh when the evidence is clear that politicians are deceiving their constituents and are willing to sacrifice thousands of young lives to further their schemes for power and profits.
No American killed or maimed in this war Bush is so eager to start will profit by one penny from the billions of dollars made after the war. The pain and suffering and death and destruction of a war are too great to fight one for monetary gain. The only justification for fighting a war is to protect the American people, and even though Bush claims that is his motive, it is obvious from the deceptions that it is not his true motive.
Some Americans are childish in their belief in the goodness of politicians. It is time to grow up. Evil in this world is not confined to any one country or only to those who speak a different language than we do. I define "evil" as a willingness to take innocent life.
As a Jew who loves America first and Israel second [The EU and UN are on par w/ what floats around in my toilet] the general is mistaken when he cavalierly dismisses the Iraqi threat:
1)The risk of Iraq acquiring a nuclear weapon will only increase over time... no rational party doubts he will use such weapons or at least blackmail the free world. Striking Iraq before this eventuality will only save lives in the long run, here, and in Israel.
2)The myth of "hostilities" b/n secular Iraq and fundamental terror groups is proven. The Arabs have no problems putting aside their petty differences toward their singular ultimate goal of removing Israel and America from the planet.
Won't someone relieve me of this man?
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