Now msfe is doing an ever better wild-imitation - linking another dubious web site, and leaving it to others to clean up the resulting mess. I'm waiting for any of the critics of Bush policy to propose a coherent, workable alternative. If Bush's opponents favor a continued "containment" policy, then do they mean continued sanctions, which do not prevent Saddam from diverting oil revenues to his military and security forces, including his weapons programs, and which force the Iraqi people to live in a permanent state of privation and dependency? If they have some other program in mind, then for how long is it supposed to remain in place? What's supposed to back it up (especially after the threat of force has been shown to be hollow)? What are its risks and potential side-effects? Or is the proposal to allow Saddam and his regime to do whatever they want? If so, their history and their Ba'athist ideology indicate that "whatever" would be extremely dangerous to their neighbors, to Israel, to western interests, and to the Iraqi people, would include wars of conquest and resource expropriation for the sake of building an Arab empire under Baghdad's leadership, and would almost certainly include the re-acceleration of weapons of mass destruction programs and continued if not further extended safe haven for international terrorists (not just Al Qaeda) in Baghdad and elsewhere. So, which is it? An inherently unstable situation that includes permanent escalated US and allied military presence in the region alongside the permanent impoverishment and oppression of the Iraqi people? Or freedom for the Iraqi fascist totalitarian state to do what fascist totalitarian states always do, but this time with weapons of mass destruction, in the wake of a widely perceived US and allied retreat, amidst confirmation of the impotence of the United Nations? Or, probably even worse, some confused, haphazard, and unpredictable combination of the two - with an option on true conflagration at some later date? Or is there some other remotely realistic alternative? Until you have a reasonable, superior alternative, then you're just carping from the sidelines, substituting wishful thinking and reflex prejudices for a policy, or, perhaps, as sometimes seems more common, ranting like a fool.
"Until you have a reasonable, superior alternative, then you're just carping from the sidelines, substituting wishful thinking and reflex prejudices for a policy, or, perhaps, as sometimes seems more common, ranting like a fool." AMEN to that.
And another AMEN to that... these anti-war Peaceniks are getting annoying... we should send em to Baghdad and nuke the whole shabbang... on second thoughts, let's not nuke Iraq, cos that will contaminate our oil-to-be... And screw the UN, we will do what we want... cos we are the Chosen Ones... Once we have secured Iraq, let's rearrange the mosaic of that entire middle east region... we need to democratize it... if they won't democratize, let's bomb em and establish military bases around their oil fields, in order to protect the oil from the Islamic nutcase terrorists and also from the Russians, French and in fact from anyone who doesnt have a stake in our US oil companies... yeeehaaa! Cachingos, baby! And to all those terrorist lunatic Peaceniks who say that we should immediately remove the sanctions from Iraq, allow it to pump its oil independently of foreign interference and that we should be more even-handed with our Israel policy, we should send those evil terrorist Peacelovers to Cuba and cage em for life, for being traitors to joint US-Israeli government policy and to the economic interests of the USA.... So all of ya proclaim: "Let's smoke em out and give em justice"... cos we're gonna go find us some weapons of mass deestruktion and some Al-Quaeda in Iraq... make no mistake about it... and if we can't find em, that's ok, cos by then we will already be in control of Iraq... yeehaaa... cachingos, baby!!! God Bless America and Israel... yeeehaaa...
Now why, I have to ask myself, have I been contributing to a thread begun by someone who deserves to be put on "ignore," and who greets attempts at discussion with inane blithering? As if it wasn't bad enough to have all posts subsisting beneath a "poll" whose contents suggest some pathetic combination of paranoia and arrested development... It's time to let this thread die its long-overdue death. I apologize for having helped prolong its existence unnecessarily. See you (or some of you) on the other Iraq policy threads, or not, but I'm through here. Subscription canceled.
Hey Kymar dude, Sorry to see ya leave... Until we meet again, Candle P.S. Learn to see with your eyes open!
your right kymar, he is just another freakin moron trying to destroy this message board. I'll put him on ignore until the moderators wise up and get rid of him.
Now that would be an interesting phenomenon... if you don't like my thread , feel free to leave P.S. Learn to see with your eyes open!
Let's take this thread back to the gist of its raison d'etre... Back to repercussions, or are we still of the view (as per the poll) that there will be NO repercussions? Let me put it another way... if someone came into your home, shot your family and stole your money, and you knew who that someone was, would you turn the other cheek? Now assume that you have an extended family of close to 1 billion people who feel the exact same way you do... and now add to that 1 billion people a further 2-3 billion people who would sympathise with your conception that the scum who committed his crime against your family cannot be allowed off the hook without at least a few broken ribs and a blown out brain... Getting kinda scary, eh? I, for one, am dam scared and do not wish my personal safety to be compromised by the ulterior motives of corporations and lobby groups. This could be the beginning of something that is of net negative benefit to the average American guy on the street. And when it starts, it could create a momentum all of itself. The primary purpose of this thread is to see what potentially lies ahead of us, unless we have very significant policy changes, vis-a-vis our relationships with the rest of the world... I agree that there will always be people out there who will wish to harm us... we must continue to deal with them... but to attack an entire country in the alleged pursuit of weapons of mass destruction will not do anything positive for our relationship with several billion people, in view of the well documented global feelings on the US stance on Iraq and the well-documented global skepticism on America's actual motives in attacking Iraq... do we want to have a massacre of civilians attributed to us (the people) as a result of our leaders' policies? We will be the target of any repercussions, not our leaders... that is pretty much an inevitability... My gut instinct is that we are at a pivotal moment in contemporary American history... may God help us all...
Clearly one would be foolish to allow terrorism acts in one's country to go on unhindered by not retaliating. The consequences of us retaliating may well be that there will be further acts of terror. On the other hand if we don' take a stance there is no guarantee that they will stop considering the hatred for the USA. The lunies will think they are winning if we back off so what other option is there left other than to take action ? It is a catch 2 situation. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Under the circumstances, to me at least, there is only one decision which can be made, France and Germany nothwithstanding. freealways