Re: 15 Hours, 3 Minutes, 20 Seconds - tick tock tick tock
> That's hardly much more than a wild guess.
That Saddam would hold on to power? Well, given that he only responds to demands with 250,000 troops costing a billion dollars a day on his border,
and given that he only respnds to the threat of that force if he thinks it might actually come and get him, and given that the window for war would close in a few weeks and we'd have to wait till next fall, and given that FRance has vowed to veto anything remotely relating to an ultimatum or call for use of force without even reading it, it seems to me that if France had its way it would have been perfectly clear to Saddam that he would have home free. It would have been total victory for Saddam. And he'd live to terrorize his people for a long while longer, and to threaten the world to an increasing degree.
>The first Gulf War was a very
> good opportunity for UN-led troops to go and get Saddam.
So you supported regime change and urban warfare in Baghdad in 1991, and without UN authorization? And you support that long before it was clear that such regime change warfare was the absolute last resort (as it is today)?
Or you don't?
Or what are you saying?
Your type is always so damn vague about what you actually SUPPORT. Why is that?
We probably should've gotten Saddam in 1991. I really don't know. At the time, we didn't know what would happen over the next 12 years. It was a tough call and would've been a tough sell politically, most especially because people like you would march in the streets. It seems to me you don't see the obvious point right in front of your face: WE ALREADY TRIED TO GIVE PEACE A CHANCE AND NOTHING UNDER THE SUN GOT SADDAM TO COMPLY. So it's really laughable when people call for more time, when more time and more time and more time is what we've already done for years and years.
>It was not done,
> even though his record on human rights violations was well known already
> at that time; as much as his chemical and biological arms buildup.
Yes, UN Resolutions were passed over his WMD and human rights violations right after the Gulf War, precisely to try and find a solution short of further war to remove Saddam. So what's with you? This is what we're talking about! The UN failed to enforce it's resolutions!!!!! Saddam failed to allow any solution short of war! Pay attention. Jesus Freaking Christ.
> If I remember well, the first Gulf War didn't beat the drums of
> "saving the Iraqi population" - it was limited to the liberation
> of Kuwait.
Yeah, so? In the Gulf War we were acting to stop the agression of Saddam, which included his invasion of Kuwait, the lobbing of SCUD missiles into some other neighbors, and the threatening of invasion of Saudi Arabia.
The LEGAL BASIS of the current war (which is really just a continuation of the previous war) is that he didn't abide by his ceasefire agreement, and years and over a dozen more UN Resolutions followed, ending with his current material breaches of his final opportunity to fully and immediately comply.
I keep seeing what you guys post and I guess you just don't follow the news very closely and don't seem to understand that the legal basis for the Iraq war is an unique situation with a 13 year history justifiying it.
Now some of those UN Resolutions along the way do demand he end his sick, evil treatment of his people. Those are part of the "Iraq has been and remains in violation of its obligations" mentioned in 1441. And furthermore, the human rights and liberation aspect gives us a clear conscience in acting, because while the primary motivation for Bush and Blair and company is national and world security, along with that comes the liberation for Iraq.
I keep seeing you guys posting lists about all the other countries where there are evil things going on. But I guess you all have your heads in your asses and can't follow that Saddam is an outlaw who invaded Kuwait and has been in violation of the resulting UN demands ever since. Now you guys obviously DON'T support going to all these other countries and liberating them, so you're not being at all serious. What you're saying is you OPPOSE the liberation if IRAQ *despite* all the solid legal bases that demand our intervention. That liberation for Iraqis comes long with this is a GOOD thing, duh. How can you not understand that?
>The question is on Bush senior as to know why he chose at that
> time to leave Saddam in power. And why the West eventually hoped the
> Iraqis themselves would topple Saddam without any further help from them.
> That was a cynical misjudgement many Iraqis (especially in the North and
> South) still blame the 1991 coalition for.
YEah, we called on people in Iraq to rise up, and then we let them down.
And YOU want to backstab them AGAIN and leave them even MORE hopeless than ever before. Imagine how you'd feel in IRaq today, where journalists such as Peter Arnet in Baghdad are talking the past few days about how the ice is breaking and some IRaqis are beginning to cautiously speak more freely for the first time, and many (and I have no idea how representative) are telling them they want to build a new future and they understand what the USA is doing. And you'd have our forces back down and give Saddam a victory. Absolutely sickening to even contemplate such a course of events.
> Unwilling? Absolutely not - I don't see how you could try to infer that
> from my previous message.
Is this your usual screenname?
> What did it mean for the Iraqi people? They have suffered under a very
> strict and severe embargo for which Saddam himself is to blame in the
> first place and the UN and USA in the second place. Why is that? When it
> became clear that economical sanctions weren't doing the trick, the UN
> continued to enforce them.
Well, we miscalculated how evil Saddam is. How willing he'd be to let his people suffer to score propaganda points with dupes, and how hellbent he'd be in his obsession for acquiring ever more monstrous weapons of mass destruction.
The oil-for-food works in Northern IRaq. But anyway, I obviously support ending the sanctions and the suffering under them, as I support KILLING SADDAM and ending this shit once and for all. You, OTOH, support what?
>The consequences are not very pretty: as far as
> welfare and health issues are concerned, the innocent Iraqi people
> suffered a whole lot. They moreover became more and more dependent on
> government help (food, water and healthcare). Quite the opposite of what
> the embargo originally was meant to do. Yet sanctions continued. They
> haven't harmed Saddam, made the population even more dependent on him, and
> allowed him to stay in place.
Apparently what you support is ending the sanctions and leaving Saddam in power?
So you support total victory for Saddam, and you'd have allowed him to truly become the next Hitler.
> Aren't you afraid you're taking certain moral principles too far? What's
> next? An invasion of Africa, where the conditions of millions of people,
> many more than in Iraq (which was a rather prosperous country before the
> first Gulf War)? An invasion of China, of North Korea? Chechnya? Israel
> and the occupied territories? If you want to be lead a moral coalition to
> rid the world of bad things, I wish you good luck.
See above.
> Again, you should return to the Gulf War I. At that time, who cared about
> the fate of the Iraqi? Yet all of a sudden, Bush junior thinks they are of
> primary importance.
>And how does Saddam threaten the world? Leaving aside
> Israel, none of its neighbours appear very much terrified at Saddam's
> presence.
First of all, I don't for one second except your view that none of the other neighbors feel threatened. They all do.
And I love how you say "leaving aside Israel."Israel is an ally of America and Saddam has vowed to help commit a holocast there, including the pledge to one day destroy Jerusalem. But lets just "put that aside." LOL!
And should we put aside that he gave safe haven to Abu Nidal, the biggest name in terrorism previous to USama bin Laden, and responsble for blowing up airports in Vienna and Rome, the assination of democratic Palestinian, and the murder of Israeli ambassabor to England, and contributor to provoking war in LEbannon?
And should we put aside that he funds Plaestinian homicide/suicide bombers who blow up little children on purpose? Just a few days ago he gave another suybstantial amount of financial support to such atrocities.
And should we put aside that Al Qaeda agents are in Iraq today, many of whom were invited in AFTER 9/11? (IOW, even after the atrocity of 9/11, Saddam welcomed them with open arms). There's also CIA evidence that Saddam gave poison gases training to al Qaeda agents. See The New Yorker Feb 10, eight pages of evidence on links.
Lets put that all aside?
OK then, even if you put all of that aside, there's still a clear threat that requires action. The UN declared him a threat who must be disarmed, and did so unanmiously. Duh. Again, you've gotta watch the news sometime.
>Kuwaitis are much more under pressure now, with an imminent war,
> than they have been during the last 10 years.
And Kuwait will be glad when Saddam is gone, as he is a complete threat to them. Saddam, quite obviously, intends to one day re-invade Kuwait and hold the world hostage with WMD so they can't knock him out again (he told aides after the Gulf War that his mistake was he invaded Kuwait before he had nukes).
>By their own admission.
> Leaving Saddam in power for sure doesn't promote peace, justice, welfare
> or prosperity in Iraq. The question is whether you need a massive bombing
> campaign to get to Saddam; given that a UN approval doesn't seem necessary
> anyway. Do you need to use nukes to kill a fly?
We waited years and years for Saddam to comply, he chose not to in his final opportunity ("final opposunity" was the UN's words, not mine). No serious alternative action was offered by anyone, and that's because there is no serious alternative action. Duh - that's why we're back at war! Do try and tune into the news, please!
> Well, the Iraqi exiles find it probably amusing that Bagdad is under bomb
> threat; a city of about 6 million people. I spoke to Kurds who survived
> Saddam's purges, my husband even went into Kurd-controlled Norther Iraq.
> They want Saddam out of power for sure, yet are not really happy with the
> present war plans. Nor with what will come once Saddam is ousted.
Oh, but since you said above that the sanctions and so forth were so horrible, you'd obviously have all that lifted, including the No-Fly Zones, so what you'd have happen to the Kurds, rather than lifting the threat Saddam presents to them, is a re-continuation of the genocide Saddam commits against them.
Or am I making unreasonable speculations on what your policy would have been?
Oh, but you failed to say what we should do. But you did make it obvious what would happen if we followed your thinking, so you really can't weasel around this shit and not justify the consequences of what you advocate..
> Precisely. And many more "peaceniks" as you like to call them,
> have been opposing Saddam's rise and powergames. Why would they be
> irrelevant? As we have been doing with Saudi Arabia, and Israel, for
> already quite a while.
> I don't mind if Wolfowitz is Jewish or not. That's besides the point
> entirely. I do mind he's not very talkative about getting to Saddam after
> Gulf War I.
>You do understand that this imminent war will be judged on a
> number of factors: (a) how the Iraqi civilians will suffer during it, (b)
> whether it will uncover Saddam's stocks of WMD (c) whether Saddam will
> indeed be ousted and (d) whether the Iraqi will finally have the freedom
> to elect the leader they want - since that's the highest goal of a
> democracy.
(b) and (c) are guaranteed. There's no chance he doesn't have illegal weapons, and there's no chance he'll be in power a month from now.
(a) and (d) are uncertain. But as to (a), the recent history of American-led coalition wars shows they fight them justly, so it can be reasonably anticipated that we'll fight this one justly. And as to (d), whatever comes after Saddam, I have NO DOUBT that it'll be better than Saddam.
However, the nature of the government that comes next is the area the governments involved are most prone to break promises. This is the area people need to put the most pressure on our governments over.
OK, I'm almost typed out.
Wait, I do have to respond to the MOAB thing.
> But you seem to be pretty sure that it will be fought justly. I read your
> message where you are full of joy about the Moab. I cannot link that to
> your concern for the Iraqi.
Sorry, I'm glad America has such awesomely superior firepower with incredible advancements in targeting. You see, this means the war will be as quick as possible, and with as few innocent deaths as possible. If such technologies are used with that intention anyway.
So yeah, we have a big, bad Mother Of All Bombs. GOOD! You see, wars are most successful in every aspect when the GOOD GUYS have OVERWHELMINGLY SUPERIOR FIREPOWER. Apparently what you're interested in is a fairer fight for the dictator of Baghdad. You wanna lift the sanctions, let him use all his country's oil wealth to fund horrendous WMD, and then force us to go to war with him some years down the line when Saddam will be quite able to take millions of lives down with him. Sorry, I don't want a fairer fight. I don't wanna, as Tony Blair says, "kick the problem into the tall grass" again, and have to face Saddam when he's stronger.
> Well, that's a very simple statement. Kosovo is not Iraq. Afganistan is
> not Iraq. And even if I agree that the NATO intervention in Kosovo had the
> desired effects, with minimal civilian losses (although there were serious
> mistakes and I hope those responsible have been appropriately punished),
> there is yet no guarantee that the way in which the USA is promoting this
> war (Moab, cruise missiles even nukes!) is able to minimize the civilian
> losses.
Um, there is all the reasons for removing Saddam that we had for removing Milosevic, plus a mountain of more reasons.
> That's a wrong question, of course. I am not responsible for the death of
> Iraqi under Saddam's regime. I'm not responsible for the Chinese who died
> in Tian An Men, I'm not responsible for the Chechens who died under
> Russian fire. You couldd potentially only accuse me of being responsible
> for not trying to find a solution, peaceful or otherwise, in the interest
> of the safety of the Iraqi people - that is, if such a situation would
> indeed apply to me.
You're trying to find a solutuion, are ya? Funny, I don't see any solutions from you in this long post. And yes, you would be responsible for the consequences of Saddam holding on to power if France's agenda had won the day.
Leaving Saddam in Baghdad is a policy. Doing nothing is a policy. Kicking the probken in the tall grass is a policy. And those who push for a policy and see it carried out share the responsibility for the consequences.
> That's again an implication my texts do not convey; there is no benign
> status-quo in Iraq and nowhere did I state that.
> The numbers you quote are also not very "clean": you probably
> include deaths from the Iraq Iran war that cannot be included if we're
> talking about civilian Iraqi.
We're talking about EVERYTHING. We're talking about the consequences on human beings and our world if Saddam were let off the hook.
> The Iraqi population also consider this a moment of truth, but are much
> less elated about it.
Says the self-appointed spokesperson for the Iraqi people who opposes the removal of their dictator.
