Section9, your screed compelled me to write a rebuttal. So lets discuss those core issues of war and peace a little.
Elections are a means of peacefull political change.
War is the result of the failure of diplomacy.
War is political change through violent means.
Does one go to to war because of what one knows, or does one go to war because of what one does not know?
Peace flows from the end of a gun barrel.
Is what we know about Iraq sufficient to justify war? Is what we don't know about Iraq enough to justify war?
When one looks at the Cuban missile crises, it was thought that the U.S. knew enough to go to war. What the Soviet archives reveal however, is that the CIA's failure to spot the tactical nukes present led to a potentially catastrophic underestimation of the threat that Cuba posed as President Kennedy was considering invading the island to knock out the strategic missiles. A Pentagon estimate issued in midcrisis that a U.S. invasion would suffer 18,500 dead and wounded did not include the possibility that Cuba had tactical nukes. Two recent books -- One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958-1964 by Timothy Naftali, a Cold War historian at Yale University, and Russian historian Aleksandr Fursenko, and Gribkov's Operation Anadyr -- put the number of tactical warheads deployed in Cuba at between 98 and 104, and these were under direct authority of Cuban President Fidel Castro. He wanted to keep the tactical weapons -- short-range rockets and airplane bombs -- even after the crisis, and Moscow's defense minister had initially ordered his troops to train Cubans in their use. We were so self-assured about what we thought we knew for thirty years, that the truth was indeed quite chilling.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, horrified upon Castro's urging to launch strategic nuclear missiles against the United States - in a first strike - at the height of the crisis, ordered that all the tactical weapons be swiftly removed.
The information that recently has been uncovered is that Castro fully intended to use the weapons at his disposal in response to a U.S. invasion force. This would've eliminated many times the original estimate of casualties forecast by the CIA, in addition to the loss of dozens of U.S. Navy fleet surface ships. What options would the U.S. have had in response? Keep in mind that by 23 Oct 1962, there were 41,902 Soviet military personell, including 10,000 combat troops on the island. And they definitely would've been collateral damage in that exchange.
Khrushchev's son was asked what his father's response would've been to what would've been no doubt America's only response to Cuba's use of the tactical nuclear weapons at its disposal. He answered, that his father would've had two choices. One would've been to resign. That was a death sentence, because he'd have been killed. The other choice was to launch a full scale assault on Europe.
At the height of the missile crisis, on Oct. 27, when the world seemed poised on the edge of nuclear holocaust, Castro had appeared to urge Moscow to launch a first-strike nuclear attack on America.
``If the imperialists invade Cuba,'' Castro wrote in a letter to Khrushchev, ``the danger that that aggressive policy poses for humanity is so great that following that event, the Soviet Union must never allow the circumstances in which the imperialists could launch the first nuclear strike.
``If they actually carry out the brutal act of invading Cuba . . . that would be the moment to eliminate such danger forever through an act of legitimate self-defense, however harsh and terrible the solution would be.''
When the stunned Soviet ambassador in Havana, Aleksander Alekseev, asked Castro if he was really advocating that Moscow be the first to launch its nukes, Castro demurred.
``No,'' he answered, according to Alekseev's report to Moscow. ``I don't want to say that directly, but under certain circumstances we must not wait to experience the perfidy of the imperialists, letting them initiate the first strike.''
Before his death, Dr. Ernesto "Che" Guevera was asked if he was happy about the outcome of the Cuban Missile crises, seeing how close it came to nuclear holocaust. Guevera demurred that he was quite dissapointed. How could he be dissapointed that Cuba, and his cause was not obliterated by the most likely of U.S. responses. His answer: "We and Cuba's cause might be dead. But the United States would be destroyed."
That was then. This is now. Question is, are there any even more wacked-out people than Guevera running about now? Would it matter if there are wack jobs running around with towels wrapped on too tightly about their heads, cutting off oxygen to their brains? The question is, is Saddam a wack job like Guevera? Or does he know somebody who is just such a wack job and has been supplied by him (as Castro was by Khrushchev)? Is it plausible to believe that wack jobs can exist that have no sense of self preservation and would sacrifice not only themselves, but their nation and people, satisfied with the knowledge that the United States would be dealt a fatal blow? Is it possible that people exist that hate the United States in the full meaning of the word, and would do - at all costs - whatever necessary so as to accomplish the destruction of their nemesis? Do we know enough to justify the possible ramifications to our actions based on what we don't know? Or vice versa? That is indeed the question.
I'm extremely thankfull to God that none of you shallow, short-sighted Bush sychophants are running the show. It is nevertheless entirely Bush's call. And I do pray to God that He gives him the wisdom and guidance necessary to carry out the heavy responsibility that has been placed on his shoulders. The thing that saved the world 40 years ago, was that the leaders of the two mightiest countries in the world, having incomphrehensilbe destructive forces at their finger tips, mutually sought for a way out. Neither one of them listened to their advisors and both activley seeked for a peacefull resolution. I pray that God gives Bush the wisdom he needs to make the right decision. I pray that he seeks God's guidance, and that the perhaps the decision to spill the cup of wrath might be spared (as Jesus begged His Father to take the cup from Him in the Garden of Gethsemene before His crucifixion). No matter what Bush decides however, I pray that it is done for the right reasons. And if Bush decides for war, then so be it. Its his decision, that's what we pay him for. And to think people fight and claw over each other to get to the top and into that postion so as to be responsible for just those kinds of decisions, their aftermath and the legacy they leave behind as a result of them.
The truth is that the monster known as Khruschev deserves more credit for avoiding war in Cuba than that idiot Kennedy did.