Posted by iceburn on 4/1/2003, 3:36 pm, in reply to "Re: Threat of Iraq" I disagree. If you don't think that nations of this planet should bond together and make a council of nations that tries to police itself and the world, then who should? The "it's not our problem" routine is tired. Who is going to stand up for the people who get oppressed by their own government? Of course, this is all opinion. There is no right answer. : 5) That our superpower status is somehow After we've made a declaration of 'do this, or we will attack you', the matter most certainly could be humiliating and encourage other such nations to not listen to what the U.S. says. That could potentially be very bad for our world position. I favored the war on the Taliban and You know, I've got mixed feelings about that. Check this out (posted by SleepingHare on this message board): http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110002122 Draw your own conclusions. I've just been doing a lot of thinking about the whole Al Qaeda issue. Unlike every major claim of I'm not quite sure why the war over Kuwait was stupid on our part (or the entire unanimous UN for that matter). But it's inflated artificially Or something. They were hoping for an internal coup. They didn't get it. Me, I'm more of a conventional person. I don't really like underhanded ploys, and as such, I probably wouldn't be a good politician. Oh well. I guess I won't quit my day job : All in all, it's just going to get people Oil is a very lucrative trade. Iraq would be able to pay everyone in their country a nice salary for doing nothing, as well as having their college paid for (this is the case in a few Arab nations), if the people were allowed to benefit from the oil sales. We could also use another couple of airbases in that region for our strategic interests. Heck, we could really use a great naval port in that area. : I hope that we don't make the same mistake of Is that the only reason for war nowadays? Geez, you have one terroristic attack on a major American financial landmark, and now everyone's got to do it to get our attention. Heh. What was the reason for the war of 1812 again? I'm sure we've learned something from our history, but I'll be damned if I don't know what that lesson is. We busted I thought the No-Fly zones did a lot for U.S./UN interests. Not only did it gaurantee that the Iraqi air force would not be able to harass any of our interests, but it did wonders at curbing Saddam's ability to gas his own civilians, which should be a public relations gold mine for us, although I don't think we really exploited it like we could have, but that kind of outlines the goodwill that was intended by it. The UN's No-Fly zones prevented Iraq from engaging in any more acts that violated the Geneva protocols that Iraq signed. In my opinion, this should actually have been grounds for a UN coalition to disarm Iraq because Iraq had done what the whole world had feared a chemical weapon toting dictator would do. The Iraqi planners have been very inadequate throughout Saddam's reign. They went from having one of the largest armies with the most impressive artillery forces in the region, to being a hasbeen or nobody very quickly. That doesn't mean that there are not people fighting hard over there right now, and to dismiss their resistance entirely, simply because a column of Iraqi soldiers is surrendering seems a little premature. That said, I do believe that the war should continue going pretty well for the coalition forces. Any predictions as to how long the conflict will last? Thank you for your time, Iceburn
24.196.62.85
: No direct harm was shown, besides that of a
: failed attempt at an assassination, which
: was not only shut down but was responded
: to by bombings and our own assassination
: attempt on Saddam. In my personal opinion,
: we really to have a responsibility to
: ourselves to respect the fact that it's
: not our duty to be the world's police.
: thrown into question if we didn't attack
: Iraq.
: Al Qaeda, one that I consider partially
: unfinished, considering our objectives of
: taking out Osama Bin Laden and the higher
: ups have not been fully completed or
: confirmed. That was the result of a
: serious terrorist attack that actually DID
: something.
: Iraqi-linked terrorism, which typically
: are even questionably traced back to Iraq.
: Now that we were stupid enough to go to war
: with them over Kuwait, of course we can
: expect the threat from Iraq to be
: inflated.
: from our bad decision to go into the Gulf
: War 12 years ago, and inflated even more
: artificially by the fact that we were even
: more stupid by not finishing the job when
: we went to war the first time. That's what
: happens when you have stupid
: Commander-in-Chief running things, I
: guess. 
.
: killed while pissing away our money by
: empowering terrorist causes and
: restructuring a desert for what cannot
: possibly be real returns in oil or other
: international interests.
: the Gulf War, and we finish the job
: quickly and decisively. Then this will no
: longer be an issue, and we can at least
: claim to have done some sort of amicable
: good by ousting Saddam. However, whether
: we can make this claim or not, there is no
: clearcut legitimate justification for this
: war that I will recognize, short a liberal
: and literal terrorist attack funded by the
: Iraqi government (while some events will
: be claimed, it's hard to get any proof,
: and wars should not be started without a
: little proof here or there).
: Iraqis for the Bush assasination attempt,
: and reprised when we used cruise missles
: to strike IIS offices and officials. As
: for planes being shot at during the No-Fly
: Zone issuance, well, considering the
: No-Fly Zone didn't do much to further U.S.
: military aims at that point, I don't quite
: understand why we enforced a U.N. No-Fly
: Zone for the near sole purpose of
: protecting the Kurds and Shi'a and
: punishing Iraqis for sucking at war.
: And that Iraqis suck at war is something I'm
: sure we can agree on. I turned on the tv
: and saw men with white flags marching down
: the street, and I thought we had invaded
: the French. Pitiful.
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