Candle - be careful with that perspective-shifting... very volatile stuff. Putting oneself in another's shoes can lead to lots of unintended realizations...
Or maybe you are mellowing with age It is crucial to recognize all of the mentioned points. Yes, Afghanistan is the obvious route for a pipeline, etc, etc. However, there are more issues here than economic. I am certainly not in the know of all the details involved. But there can be no taking lightly the risks of an out of control state with a weapons program we don't really know enough about to evaluate (you and I). I would however say that if Saddam had the time and the resources to achieve creating (or buying or even worse selling) nuclear weapons, or if Al Qada did, they apparently would not be easily deterred from using them. So it is a dangerous situation regardless of the economics. What would be the worldwide consequences of a Scud Missile hitting Tel Aviv with a nuclear bomb? Or Tehran? Or any of Saddams' other neighbors he has a gripe with? (Let alone getting one into the US). Now I am certainly not voting to bomb Iraq, because I don't have the information available to me to make an informed decision. BUT...Saddam's history is clear. He is a mass murderer. He has committed atrocities beyond belief. He even kills members of his own family. He was an assassin before he was a head of state. If you could change history, would you have made a preemptive attack against Hitler? And still, if there is a way to avoid war, that is what I would vote for. Peace (whenever possible), RS7
I thought so....very good!!! I knew you were sharper than him. I vote to give you a Caribbean country. I bet you could do a better job. How about Haiti? I hear they are always looking
Yes, there is no denying that he is a thug... a thug built and trained by the USA in its proxy war against Iran, poison gases supplied courtesy of USA and Europe... the USA turned on Saddam the moment Saddam accused Kuwait of siphoning off oil supplies underground from Iraqi territory... man, if someone walked into my home and stole my DVDs I would whack em round the head with a hammer... this is analogous to what Saddam did to Kuwait... Thing is, his people love him.... ya know why? Cos they hate America... ya know why? .... well, that one's easy aint it :eek:
Well if your offering, I will take Barbados... Throw in some blondes and a beach house and I'll be straight over...
Tue Aug 6, 1:19 PM ET By Charles Aldinger WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A briefing last month for a top Pentagon ( news - web sites) advisory panel depicted longtime U.S. ally Saudi Arabia as an emerging enemy of the United States and a backer of terrorism, sources familiar with the briefing said on Tuesday SAUDIS INVOLVED IN SEPT. 11 ATTACKS While the Bush administration and the conservative Saudi leadership have remained friends and allies publicly, some U.S. officials have privately voiced deep concern over Islamic militancy in the kingdom and Saudi support of fundamentalist education throughout the Muslim world. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020806/ts_nm/saudi_usa_dc_6 as Candletrader said earlier.. where there is oil or control of oil we need to be on top of it. Who owns our government? at the moment it seems to be the oil/energy companies. Sure let's talk to the masses about patriotism and freedom and democracy, and at the same time shed the blood of our young solders and so many other innocent so the pockets of few select groups can be lined with more $$$ Maybe we need to rethink our priorities as Nation and leaders of the free world. The way things are going there might not be a lot of world left to lead. Josh
Who says that America should have it's hand in every conflict taking place in the world? We have more than enough problems here that need to be addressed (like the Pattern Day Trader rule) than oppressed people around the world. Saddam has seen several American Presidents come and go including George senior. If he is linked to any terrorist act he should be brought to swift justice, if not let us use that million dollars a day spent to fight a starving enemy to better American lives.
I humbly suggest that the USA is actually responsible (usually covertly) for a significant proportion of global conflicts... it goes beyond reactive intervention, its about the origin of conflicts and the economic and strategic reasons to create a conflict from thin air... the pattern is as follows: once a conflict is covertly created by the USA, the USA will intervene overtly, saying that is it intervening on a humanitarian basis or to fight terrorism, when in actuality it is intervening for economic, geostrategic or lobby-based reasons... the biggest tragedy is that the majority of American citizens are suckered in to believing the governmental line, often propagated by an amenable media machine... its often the case that whilst the suckered in American citizens are waving their stars 'n stripes at yet another US military victory against the "Evil Doers", the American business executives are busy calculating by how much their profits will be enhanced... no American remembers the thousands of innocent victims (what the US military refers to as "collateral damage")... however the families / friends of those victims remember what the USA did, and are biding their time... which explains why we get the occasional September 11th in the USA, which America refers to as "terrorism" and what the victims of American policy refer to as a "mirror image of American policy"... personally, I would refer to both September 11th and unjustified attacks by America that result in the deaths of thousands of civilians as terrorism i.e. I don't take sides, I take the middle line... .... the circle of US interference and foreign response can be broken by a fairer US international policy... but I doubt that this is going to happen under Junior's leadership... maybe there is hope under a more internationalist, less unilateral Democrat leadership... but who knows? :eek: God Bless America in her role as the sole superpower... may she use her power wisely...
Unfortunately I don`t think morals can play any part in this case. The problem is that superpower growth lowers level of moralism. The other side of the coin is that US probably have no choice in present position.