Posted on 03/02/2003 7:21:27 AM PST by SJackson
The United States is pouring huge numbers of men, tanks, warplanes and naval vessels into Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. As the implications of the showdown emerge, Americans are asking themselves whether the stakes in this confrontation are worth the risks we are taking."
With those words, this editorial page opened its argument for war with Iraq--three weeks after the rape of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein's invaders in August of 1990. The subsequent Persian Gulf War came and went in 1991. To no sane observer's pleasure, Hussein has gamely survived, and today still wields his dark power.
That war loosed forces that now deliver us to the precipice of a second war. For more than a year, Americans again have asked whether the stakes are worth the risks. Throughout, the Tribune has resisted calling for war, arguing instead that combat is completely avoidable--if the rest of the world will stand united in demanding that Saddam Hussein immediately disarm.
....Snip....
Last summer, critics at home and abroad railed against the Bush administration's rush to war. Many said Washington would plunge blindly into combat without making its case to the American people, to Congress or to the UN.
Instead the administration obtained congressional permission to launch a war, and a unanimous Security Council vote threatening it. Secretary of State Colin Powell has demonstrated that while Iraq is happy to cooperate minimally if that will stall a war, Hussein continues to hoard the bulk of his long-banned weaponry.
Those who oppose war, particularly on the Security Council but also in the streets of many cities, have not met similar burdens.
They cannot seriously argue that Hussein has complied with the UN's repeated demands. Nor do they point to brighter days if only the U.S. and other nations hold their fire. To their credit, the opponents don't even try to argue that Hussein miraculously will comply if our armed forces withdraw, leaving his dangerous regime intact.
The gauzy vision that proponents of war offer for a post-Hussein Iraq is, to be frank, unconvincing. But at least that will be post-Hussein Iraq, with his destructive capability gone.
The lack of virtually any rival forward vision from opponents of war is no less disturbing. What happens if Hussein survives and thrives?
For 12 years, the world's solution to Iraq's lethal menace has been to kick the can down the road and hope nothing bad happens. This ostrich act has protected a thug who aspires to intimidate his neighbors--our allies, such as Israel and Turkey, included--and mock the rest of the world. His butchery and our collective inaction also have cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqis their lives.
Year upon year, every earnest tool of diplomacy with Iraq has failed to improve the world's security, stop the butchery--or rationalize our inaction. The Tribune's reluctant but unavoidable conclusion today echoes the final two sentences of the editorial that appeared here in 1990: "If there is a war, the U.S. and its allies will pay a heavy price. But the price of stopping Saddam Hussein isn't going to get any smaller."
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
I don't know about hell, but it's certainly snowing in Chicago today. Though sometimes I think those are the same place!
Nice of them to come on board against terrorism/brutal dictatorshipos that threaten the U.S. but what "heavy price" did we have to pay for the 1991 Gulf War? Too bad they didn't explain that whopper...
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