Certainly it's a threat, and a reminder that a huge amount of people have an strong, even fanatical hatred of America. You can't use the word "deserve" -- no one, save osama and maybe child molesters, deserves such a thing as 9/11, much less innocent people. I think we'll all be haunted for life by images of those buildings falling and those poor people jumping to their deaths. at least I will be. But the bush spin is just ridiculous, that this happened because some guy in a cave in the middle of nowhere, for some unknown reason, hates 'freedom'. That these guys spent years planning their deaths and the murder of thousands because there are just too many strip clubs and mcdonald's in the US. These people have a distinct goal of hurting the US, specifically, for wrongs they perceive. Maybe a better phrase is that the US is 'perceived to have provoked'. I don't know if the perceptions are correct or not (and certainly they wouldn't warrant violence either way) - but given the magnitude of this, it seems obvious they should be at the least addressed. It doesn't seem so crazy for people attacked to seriously ask 'why' the attack happened, with a goal of preventing another, not of justifying it. The bush response - dismiss the opinions of (tens, hundreds of?) millions as worthless, bomb some caves, make a few sound bites and then start preemptive wars against uninvolved countries - is not going to make Americans any safer. After the 'successful' afghan campaign the threat is still there. Ousting the taliban did not stop hatred of the US, or the resolve of the next suicide bomber. Neither will bombing iraq, or saudi arabia, or whichever - this is not a traditional land-grab conquest war with battle lines and peace treaties, its based on an ideology. This is not 'appeasing' or excusing it whatsoever, but pragmatic - the only way to really stop this, and to acheive a greater safety, is to attack it at its source. Stomping on the cockroaches that come out is not going to remove the infestation in the walls, and locking up a few terrorists will not stop the ones being bred right now. the osama threat was not nuclear as of 9/11 at least - if osama and crew had a nuke and the means to use it, they would have used it, imo. Continued hunting of osama is absolutely justified - and I'm sure that with a 300 billion defense budget the US has the means. As for saddam - he has had WMD for 20 years - supplied by the US. He has not used them -- so at least you may say that he's wasn't an insane anti-US maniac, at least until 1991. Now, given gulf war I and 10 years of sanctions, that may be different, and he may want to use WMD in retribution -- justifying the inspection effort and monitoring of him as well. But a war? If, as bush says, he has conclusive secret proof that saddam has the desire and means to use WMD, then all he has to do is to show the evidence -- if he doesn't trust the taxpayers that pay his salary, then in a secret meeting with the presidents/PMs of the civilized world -- case closed. I would fully support the initiative if some credible, independently reviewable evidence were presented. It hasn't been.
Iraq: The Case Against Preemptive War* The administrationâs claim of a right to overthrow regimes it considers hostile is extraordinary â and one the world will soon find intolerable. by Paul W. Schroeder Most Americans seem little concerned at the prospect of an American war on Iraq. This is surprising considering that, of Americaâs friends and allies, only Israel openly supports it, while other states in the Middle East, including longtime rivals and enemies of Iraq, warn against it, and the Europeans view it with alarm and growing frustration. Those challenges to the planned war now being raised, moreover, tend to center on prudential questions â whether the proposed attack will work and what short-term risks and collateral damage might be involved â rather than on whether the war itself is a good idea. The practical risks are indeed serious. The attack would entail a new military campaign while the so-called war against al-Qaeda and terrorism is far from over, involving many thousands of American troops in ground fighting with corresponding casualties, fought with few allies or none and paid for entirely by the United States in troubled economic times. Across the Muslim world hostility toward America is already inflamed, and radical Islamic movements are active. The global economy â particularly the oil and stock markets â is vulnerable to shock. Such a war would also come at a time when Americaâs alliances in Europe and the Middle East are strained, certain fragile Middle Eastern and South Asian regimes are at risk, and other international dangers (tensions between India and Pakistan, North and South Korea, and China and Taiwan, and economic crisis in Latin America, to name a few) are looming. If the war succeeds in toppling Hussein, the United States will be saddled with the new responsibilities of occupying, administering, rebuilding, democratizing, and stabilizing Iraq (beyond its existing responsibilities in Afghanistan), tasks of unreckoned costs and manifold difficulties for which neither the American public nor the administration have demonstrated much understanding, skill, or stomach. In the light of all this, the enterprise merely on practical grounds looks remarkably rash. Yet even these grave considerations should not take priority over questions of principle: do we have a right to wage preemptive war against Iraq to overthrow its regime? Would this be a necessary and just war? What long-range effects would it have on the international system? If the answers to these questions make this truly a necessary and just war, Americans ought to be willing to make sacrifices and undergo risks for it. (quite a lot) more at http://www.amconmag.com/10_21/iraq.html regards wild
"The global economy â particularly the oil and stock markets â is vulnerable to shock." Well, there goes the "war for oil" premise.
Madison, I asked some simple questions that you could have answered very succintly. So, in sifting through the detritus, may I then assume that your answers to my questions are as follows: Question 1) Do you believe 9/11 signifies a threat to the US or is it a manifestation of the US "getting what it deserves" for decades of muddling in foreign affairs? Or both? Your answer: Yes it is a threat. Question 2) If you do agree that it is a threat, is it a limited threat or is the threat possibly a nuclear/biological/chemical one? Your answer: Hard to discern, but it appears that you do agree the threat is possibly WMD-type. Question 3) If you agree it is a WMD threat, how do you propose we deal with the threat? Your answer: Weapons inspections and monitoring. Question 4) Regardless of what the inspectors find or do not find, do you think Saddam would provide terrorists with nuclear/bio/chem weapons to use against the US if he had those weapons at his disposal? Your answer: YOU DIDN'T ANSWER THIS QUESTION. Please do so, with a simple yes or no. Again, YES or NO. Please avoid going off on tangents. Now, as far as your quote WRONG! He used chemical weapons against his own people, killing thousands of them! Men, women, children, babies. How could you forget that, or does the fact that he used them against his own people and not against us make it non-notable? As far as "the Bush spin," the factors you ridiculed are indeed manifestations of what they find so horrible about us. Not only are US troops on holy Islamic soil (Saudi Arabia), but they view our culture, strip clubs and all, as abominations to Allah. Our president knows that. I have never read or heard Bush or his cabinet say Bin Laden hates us SOLELY because of our culture. That's ludicrous. How about "attack it at its source." Please illuminate for all what you consider to be "the source." Again, please remember to answer question 4 with a simple YES or NO.
Interview With Noam Chomsky about US Warplans by Noam Chomsky and Michael Albert ... How will the Iraqi people react to a U.S. attack on Iraq? What are the likely humanitarian consequences of a U.S. war? No one has a clue. Not Donald Rumsfeld, not me, no one. One can imagine a delightful scenario: a few bombs fall, the Republican Guards rebel and overthrow Saddam, crowds cheer as US soldiers march in while the band plays "God Bless America," the people of the region hail the liberator who proceeds to turn Iraq into an image of American democracy and a modernizing center for the entire region -- and one that produces just enough oil to keep the price within the range that the US prefers, breaking the OPEC stranglehold. And Santa Claus smiles benignly from his sleigh. One can easily imagine rather more grim outcomes. That's a normal concomitant of the decision to resort to massive violence, and one of the many reasons why those who advocate that course have a very heavy burden of proof to bear. Needless to say, neither Rumsfeld nor Cheney nor any of the intellectuals urging war against Iraq have remotely begun to meet this burden. ... What in your view are the true motives propelling a possible war? There are longstanding background reasons, which are well known. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world. It has always been likely that sooner or later, the US would try to restore this enormous prize to Western control, meaning now US control, denying privileged access to others. But those considerations have held for years. 9-11 offered new opportunities to pursue these goals under the pretext of a "war on terror" -- thin pretexts, but probably sufficient for propaganda purposes. The planned war can serve immediate domestic needs as well. It's hardly a secret that the Bush administration is carrying out an assault against the general population and future generations in the interest of narrow sectors of wealth and power that it serves with loyalty that exceeds even the usual norms. Under those circumstances, it is surely advisable to divert attention away from health care, social security, deficits, destruction of the environment, development of new weapons systems that may literally threaten survival, and a long list of other unwelcome topics. The traditional, and reasonable, device is to terrify the population. "The whole aim of practical politics," the great American satirist H. L. Mencken once said, is "to keep the public alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." In fact the menaces invoked are rarely imaginary, though they are typically inflated beyond all reason. That's a good part of the history of "practical politics," not only here of course. It doesn't take much skill to evoke an image of Saddam Hussein as the ultimate force of evil about to destroy the world, maybe the universe. And with the population huddling in fear as our gallant forces miraculously overcome this awesome foe, perhaps they won't pay attention to what is being done to them, and may even join the chorus of distinguished intellectuals chanting praises for Our Leaders. The US preponderance of power is so extraordinary that there will be plenty in reserve if things seem to be going wrong. And if that happens down the road, it can all be shovelled deep into the memory hole, or blamed on someone else, or maybe on our naive faith that others are as benign as we are. It's pretty easy: there's a treasure trove of experience to draw from. full interview at http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=2422 regards wild
Straw admits oil is key priority Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor Tuesday January 7, 2003 The Guardian The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, yesterday pinpointed for the first time security of energy sources as a key priority of British foreign policy. Mr Straw listed energy as one of seven foreign policy priorities when he addressed a meeting of 150 British ambassadors in London. The US and British governments officially deny that oil is a factor in the looming war with Iraq, but some ministers and officials in Whitehall say privately that oil is more important in the calculation than weapons of mass destruction. ... full article at http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,869868,00.html regards wild
Max, Wild is German. Don't you just love it that half of the posts in this debate are coming from a single non-American? Must be great to sit on the other side of the Atlantic, unattacked, and complain about the big, bad US of A. Hmm, could the fact that if not for us Deutschland would be running the entire show be a factor?
Well, he said that he was a "German citizen," lot's of middle east natives immigrated into Germany; and brought with them their fundamental Muslim biases.
Those connected politically are round about connected to money and it all floats right back, padding the pockets of the political power. I need a scam like that Inmate 451