Posted by iceburn on 4/1/2003, 1:57 pm, in reply to "Re: Threat of Iraq" Iraq remains as weak as it is today because of UN sanctions and U.S. politics. The U.S. protracted the war with Iran by supplying both sides with weapons, and obviously we had a heavy hand in the no-fly zones and UN sanctions over Iraq. I'm not saying that I agree with U.S. politics, nor am I really saying that Iraq and Germany are equivalent nations, militaries, threats, etc. I was merely drawing a comparison. For the most part, I'm playing devil's advocate with you, Phoebe : You said that the Germans "rised" I'm sorry, did I say 'rised'? A silly point, but I point I guess I'll give you. No, I don't see Iraq as such a threat, and I never said Germany took over two world superpowers. I see the Bush administration's actions as more of finally removing a thorn from it and its allies sides, more than I see it as a pre-emptive war, but politics are not supposed to mean 'what you see is what you get'. It's a war that should have been fought a long time ago. The purposes of just about any of the United States' moves are to pretty much gaurantee that the world has only one superpower and that we stay in our position of power, and maybe even that the entire political situation improves a bit in our favor. A bad apple out of the Middle Eastern bunch just might pave a way to a more peaceful, amicable, pliant Middle East. I think Or, after you cut off the legs of your opponent, maybe you don't just sit back and let him bleed to death, maybe you finish him off, and help the people he led astray build their country up. They have the resources. All they need to do is have control over them and remove the economic sanctions, and whammo, you have a powerful, secure Iraq. More than anything, I wish that Saddam would have been removed a long time ago (and we would have stopped toying with all these coups and revolts) and the economic sanctions dropped, so the Iraqi people could be much better off today. : I already am aware of Iraq attacking their I see it more as a finishing move, than a pre-emptive strike. It's like, "Enough with this messing around. Let's just take out this administration so the region can become more stabilized." The whole war on terror is a political mask. It was used to pass silly national laws like the PATRIOT Act, Homeland Security Act, and other such laws, and it has been used to justify a war with Afghanistan, a nation that most certainly aided in the catalyst for the 'war on terror'. The Iraqi war is hidden behind a political mask, and some of the American public (and a lot of the world public), have called the administration on it. It was one of several bad moves on the Bush administration. However, it doesn't stop the present, and it won't stop whatever else Bush and his advisers have planned after Iraq. : It's true we have interests there, but I'm afraid you are very wrong there (and you are most certainly exaggerating the numbers I I agree that the war should have been fought earlier to have been completely legitimate to people with your objections. I don't think the world will ever work the way you are wanting it too, however. I've met too many narcistic, political people to be that naive about politics or people in power. : If "getting involved" is Great, we agree on something. : What you're implying with relation to the You are only looking one step ahead. This wouldn't lead to the dwindling of the U.S. as a world power, nor might the next event, or the next event, but the U.S. not helping its allies, not following through on its promises, and not looking out for its interests, will lead to its dwindling as a world power. One day, it will happen. Nothing lasts forever. I particularly like living in this country in the position it is in right now, and hope that the U.S. keeps looking after its interests. I don't always agree with our administrations' (as in not just Bush's) policies, actions, etc., but I have that right to be opinionated, and there is no way that any administration can make everyone happy.
24.196.62.85
With Italy's support, major
: resistance in the form of neighboring
: nations was reduced to questionably low
: proportions. Germany's domestic policies
: made it hard for movements to form that
: were anti-Nazi.
: On the other hand, Iraq has few allies and
: fueds with nearly everyone it shares it's
: border with. It consistently has failed to
: take land, and the people within it's
: borders, while tortured and terrorized,
: are still capable of forming resistance
: groups to Hussein. Sunnis, Shias, Kurds...
: do you think that even if we can declare
: Saddam's nation "stable" that
: it's stability would remain if it got into
: another war with ANY of it's neighbors,
: short extremely weak ones, like Kuwait? 
. I mean, you can't argue with yourself! Hah.
: from virtually no military to take over
: two world superpowers. Do you honestly
: think that Iraq can do the same?
: the situation here is far different, and I
: do not believe it can do the same.
: When we realized the No-Fly Zones actually
: slowed Iraqi military development,
: crippling it (as we can very well tell
: from this war's terrible one-sidedness),
: and when we realized that Iraq could not
: easily and blantantly deploy chemical
: weapons or other WMD's against us without
: intense retaliation, then we should've
: REDUCED our tensions with them by backing
: off, not INCREASED them.
: own civilians with chemical weapons. If
: you're out to prove that Iraq is headed by
: a disgusting dictatorship, consider the
: argument unanimously favored. It's whether
: this disgusting dictatorship has justified
: our pre-emptive strike.
: throwing away 500 billion to overthrow
: Saddam is not in the best interest of our
: national economy, which is the only kind
: of legitimate "world interest"
: you could possibly be referring to.). The economy is almost always strengthened by war, especially post war. It was probably one of the major reasons for Bush pushing the issue so soon, and btw, you do realize that our the dow jones index is above 8000? In April of 1991, the index was at 3,004. You also realize that we were able to be a superpower with such an index, and that the bull market of the 1990's was an oddity and the market was bound to have to re-adjust itself, right? The whole economical crisis objection brought up by the news is just further proof that you can never trust a news reporter to fully research anything or understand most, if anything, of what they are talking about. Our economy will be fine. Don't take it from me. Go ask an economics professor or something.
: favor the stance that if we were ever to
: war with Iraq, it should've been during
: the '70s, during the Middle East oil
: nationalization craze. But seeing as how
: that was 30 years ago and reparations
: would be next to impossible to exact, I
: think we're running a bit late in our
: legitimate war reasoning.
: "launching massively expensive and
: unnecessary pre-emptive military strikes
: against foreign nations which do not
: reliquish all arms in the face of our
: awe-inspiring military might", then
: you're right, I don't think we should be
: "getting involved" in world
: politics.
: argument, thus, is that if we didn't
: launch this war in Iraq we would somehow
: come to lose our status as a world
: superpower.
: I'm not going to summarize how absurd that
: is.
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