Re: Bush goes Nuclear!
From: Joe Bergeron (jabergeron_at_earthlink.nettled)
Date: 07/14/04
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Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 20:43:46 GMT
In article <0fkaf0p6robih0cr6tfrhip7v6mnueh41r@4ax.com>, Dave Typinski
<nospam@nospam.net> wrote:
> Joe Bergeron wrote:
>
> >In article <hn99f01143li29c7eu0cfufrp0p78iecph@4ax.com>, Dave Typinski
> ><nospam@nospam.net> wrote:
> >
> >> >And, evidently, lie about it!
> >>
> >> They never lied, they obfuscated - and they did so because they had
> >> to. The real reasons we invaded Iraq would have been found
> >> politically unacceptable to the squeamish laity. Most people do not
> >> understand that you have to kill people to prevent deaths in your own
> >> country. That's unfortunate, but that's the deal.
> >
> >So the best thing an American citizen can do is not to bother
> >questioning its government, since it will lie, er, "obfuscate", to
> >promote any agenda which we are too lily-livered or too dumb to
> >understand?
>
> Absolutely not. Questioning GovCo is the best thing we've got going.
>
> In this particular instance, however, it seems that the government had
> good reason to invade Iraq. Their publicly stated reason was garbage,
> as is par for the course. Despite that, in this case, the
> administration (and Congress was on board, too, including Kerry and
> Edwards) did the right thing for the right reasons, despite the fact
> that they messed up their marketing of the process at the outset.
I have yet to hear a convincing explanation of what that reason is. The
panoply of lies unleashed by the government to hornswoggle the gullible
into going along is deeply offensive to me.
In my opinion, the Democrats voted for the war because of a spineless,
calculated acquiescence to the fear and war fever generated by Bush,
not because they thought it was right.
>
> >> >In other words we will do as we damn well please, regardless of what that
> >> >nation is doing.
> >>
> >> Within reason, yes.
> >
> >If a preemptive, unprovoked invasion of a militarily weak, thoroughly
> >beaten nation is "within reason", what is outside of reason?
>
> Invasion of, say, Belgium would fill that bill.
>
> I disagree that the invasion of Iraq was unprovoked. Nor was Saddam
> Hussein thoroughly beaten (it was he and his government apparatus that
> we were after, not Iraq). He may have been weak militarily, in
> comparison to the most advanced military on the planet. He was by no
> means weak financially.
I don't think that Saddam could have said or done a thing to prevent
the invasion. Bush said "Readmit the weapons inspectors or we will
invade you." They were readmitted and found nothing, but that wasn't
good enough for Bush. Bush kept saying "Unless you disarm, we will
invade you." Saddam kept complaining that he had no major weapons to
surrender, and truthfully. What was he supposed to do? Bush was willing
to use any pretext of lies to justify the invasion. I wish Saddam had
gone along with the final ultimatum and fled Iraq. I wonder what excuse
Bush would have used to launch the invasion then. I fail to see in what
sense the invasion was provoked.
As for Saddam's financial status, while he obviously had a lot of cash
stashed away for his personal use, this was obviously not available or
sufficient for mounting any kind of serious military challenge to the
USA, even if he'd had the means to get large quantities of weapons into
the country.
>
> >> This does not, however, mean the U. S. will go about stomping little
> >> nations out of existence. That's not our game. Ruining a country
> >> doesn't make them more likely to engage in commerce. *That's* what
> >> the U. S. is after, ever more commerce and the expansion of free
> >> market capitalism.
> >>
> >> So, to that end, if a nation interferes with global commerce, it will
> >> be dealt with appropriately. If it drastically interferes with
> >> American commerce, it's government may be removed.
> >
> >So which is it? Did we invade Iraq because it was a threat to American
> >citizens, or because we wanted to buy Iraqi oil only we couldn't get as
> >much as we wanted because we had imposed sanctions on Iraq?
>
> Yes.
>
> That's what I meant before about multiple reasons. There is no "which
> is it," for it is "all of the above."
Two bogus reasons for a brutal, devisive act.
>
> >> So, may I ask, what do you suggest we ought to have done instead and
> >> why?
> >
> >I suggest we should have kept on doing what we were already doing. We
> >had Saddam cooped up, reduced to a helpless pipsqueak with no power
> >beyond his own borders.
>
> No military power. He did have, though, the financial means with
> which to mess with American interests through the proxy of terrorist
> networks external to Iraq.
He may have had the means, but there's no evidence that he did it. I
doubt that he was suicidal enough to tempt US retaliation in this way
when the only thing he could have possibly gained by supporting
terrorism was a childish sense of revenge.
> He also evinced an unwillingness to
> cooperate with weapons inspectors, making the supposition that he was
> truly militarily weak quite tenuous. He mightn't have had tanks and
> aircraft, but he didn't need that sort of hardware to attack Israel or
> anyone else in his neighborhood. Missiles and warheads were all that
> was needed.
His cooperation was on and off, depending on whether he saw any benefit
to himself or Iraq by permitting the inspections when they did not
result in any notable easing of the sanctions. In the end it was on,
with the result that the inspectors were satisfied that there was
nothing there.
>
> >UN weapons inspectors found nothing, and it is
> >now apparent that this was not due to their incompetence, but to the
> >fact that Saddam had no major weapons.
>
> Then why didn't Iraq cooperate with the UN team? Why were stores of
> NBC protective gear found within their conventional weapons caches?
I dunno. Maybe he thought that we might attack him with such weapons.
Maybe our reaction to Kuwait shocked and confused him enough that he
thought anything was possible. He certainly knew that we possess all
sorts of weapons.
>
> I hold that the jury is still out on this one.
I hold that all the actual evidence is on my side of the argument. I
guess I can't win though since some people will be looking for the
weapons until they find them or the world forgets they were ever an
issue.
>
> >It was a relatively inexpensive
> >program of containment that was all but totally safe for our troops,
> >and it kept intact America's international reputation. It was all
> >working rather well.
>
> Actually, it wasn't working so well. Not for the stability of the
> Middle East, not for U. S. interests, and certainly not for the Iraqi
> people.
I disagree with the first two points. As for the welfare of the Iraqi
people, I'll wait to see what kind of country they're living in five
years from now to decide on that.
-- Joe Bergeron http://www.joebergeron.com
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