just to get back to the subject, here are the choices available: 1. No attack, leave U.N. sanctions in place. This has been going on for 11 years, and hasn't accomplished very much except to maintain the status quo. The Iraqi civilians suffer with no real results. 2. No attack, and remove the sanctions. This seems to be what people like TraderFut would like to see. This will be total victory for Sadam and will leave him in power until he dies. Also, if the sanctions are lifted he will be able to build up his technology and his military until he is ready for another war. If I were Sadam, this is the scenario that I would be hoping for. Since I am an american, this is the scenario that I dread the most. 3. Attack to remove Sadam, remove the sanctions. This is what people like TraderFut seem to fear the most. This is the worst case scenario for Sadam. This is the best case scenario for the U.S. As for the civilians, they will be worse off in the short term, and better off in the long term since they will receive aid from western nations in order to rebuild, and they will at least have a shot at democracy. 4. Assasinate Sadam and his close officials, remove the santions. This probably wouldn't work, because someone else in the power structure would just rise up and take over. Also it would feed the anti-american propaganda machine for decades. Not a good idea in my opinion. If you are an american, and you have any concern about what life will be like in the future, then option #3 is the clear winner.
3 gets my vote.. countries need free speech, freedom of religion, and to elect their leaders. any country without these is just a mess...
You're talking utter bullshit.... these are not THE options available, they are merely YOUR options... you omit the UN.... the best way forward on this is on a Security Council consensus... currently the UN resolutions call for the return of weapons inspectors to ensure that Saddam does not have weapons of mass destruction... if the US unilaterally and illegally attacks Iraq without the backing of the UN, the USA will be commiting international terrorism, and retrospectively justifies such attacks as September 11th where only 3000 civilians were killed, compared to the thousands of Iraqis that will be killed in the US pursuit of the control of Iraqi oil reserves... rapidly, every so rapidly, it is becoming difficult to differentiate between the tactics of Bin Laden and the tactics of the USA...
yeah good one candle! :eek: like we haven't tried the UN path for the past 11 years... USA attacking Iraq through its armed forces is NOT an act of terrorism,....i don't know where the hell you got that from... btw, you sure have changed your tune recently...wasn't too long ago you were howling about nuking the suckers... been speaking to ritter lately maybe?
Candle, When the US (and Canada - NATO) unilaterally attacked Yugoslavia to stop Milosovic, without the backing of the UN, was that international terrorism? If so, would you please explain that to the thousands of innocent civilians that were saved from genocide (or as Milosovic likes to call it "ethnic cleansing") as a result of unilateral action? There is nothing illegal or precedent setting if the US were to attack Iraq without the backing of the UN.
Babak, How can you say that the US attacked Yougoslavia without the backing of the UN???? where have you read that and just for info some thoughts of British MPs probaby brainwashed??? "The document is a damp squib. It really consists of a reworking of information that was already public. It seems more like a PR stunt than a serious attempt to bring new information forward. Tony Blair will have to do better than this if he wants to convince the British public to go to war." Diane Abbott, the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington "An awful lot of the material we are being shown at the moment has been around for a very long time. Military intervention has got to be avoided at all costs, especially a unilateral one. If Iraq poses a direct threat and is about to attack one of its neighbours with weapons of mass destruction, then the whole game changes, but at the moment that is certainly not the case. A lot of people feel we are being almost inevitably drawn into war without the UN course being pursued." Mark Seddon, a leftwing member of Labour's National Executive Committee "Virtually all my Labour colleagues are most insistent that this be set within the framework of international law, that we pursue to the full the UN route. I would hope, and I am confident, that that is one of the influences which our prime minister has had on the [US] president. I hope we ensure that we keep along that route." Donald Anderson, Labour chairman of the Commons foreign affairs It does not produce any convincing evidence, or any 'killer fact', that says that Saddam Hussein has to be taken out straight away. What it does do is produce very convincing evidence that the weapons inspectors have to be pushed back into Iraq very quickly ... It is a very clever document. Everybody expected it to outline the case for war on Iraq, but it doesn't even attempt to do that. I think it is designed to be the start of a rolling campaign which will involve trying to get the weapons inspectors back in. Then, if Saddam doesn't allow them in, George Bush and Tony Blair will have the ammunition to do what they consider necessary to disarm Iraq." Major Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies Nothing staggering, is it? It firms up a lot of what is already known. A lot of this ground was covered in the report by the International Institute of Strategic Studies ... It shows Saddam has the means to threaten his neighbours, and this is probably Blair's best shot at selling his plans to the country. I don't think he will get a better chance than this." Thomas Withington, an analyst with King's College, London
All the international cimmunity agreed that Milosevic was a tyrant and many rpoves of a genocide of the bosnian were found... there were too many evidences and what can be said is that the attack was even a bit late... contrary to what happened in 1990
TF2000, if you are ignorant of recent history as it pertains to the war in Yugoslavia it isn't my fault. The UN was on the ground as 'peace keepers'. However, there was no peace. Finally, NATO attacked (bombed) Milosovic's military until he stopped killing innocent civilians. Then he was personally taken into custody and put on trial in the Hague. The UN didn't lift a finger to stop Milosovic. It dilly dallied while evidence of his heinous crimes mounted. I understand where you are coming from. In your warped view of reality the US is evil to the core and therefore unable to have done such a virtuous deed. But it doesn't change the fact that because of unilateral action by the US there are thousands of people living who would otherwise have been 'cleansed' by Milosovic's henchmen. The whole world knew what was going on. The UN knew what was going on. They did NOTHING. The US attacks came late because the UN didn't take quick decisive action. Sound familiar?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,798021,00.html A new Palestinian report on UN resolutions exposes the double standards at the heart of Bush's rationale for action against Iraq, says Brian Whitaker In his speech to the United Nations earlier this month, President George Bush emphasised the need for action rather than words. "We created the United Nations security council, so that, unlike the League of Nations, our deliberations would be more than talk, our resolutions would be more than wishes," he said. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment," he continued. "Are security council resolutions to be honoured and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? [...] Right now those resolutions are being unilaterally subverted by the Iraqi regime." The same could be said of various other countries, but most notably Israel. Throughout its history, the security council has never once taken enforcement action over Israel's flouting of UN resolutions or its violations of international law. Largely as a result of American pressure, criticisms of Israel in security council resolutions also tend to be softer than the criticisms of other countries for similar offences. Not only that. Thirty-two draft resolutions criticising Israel since 1972 have never seen the light of day because the US used its security council veto to block them. Not even the mildest of these remedies was adopted in the case of Israel, whose violations - assassinations, deportations, house demolitions, restrictions on freedom of movement, etc - are well documented. In the second category - demographic manipulation - Israel has sought to consolidate its occupation of the Palestinian territories by changing the population balance in two ways. One is to encourage Palestinian emigration through economic disruption and land expropriation, as well as direct expulsion in some cases. The other is through the establishment of illegal Jewish colonies whose population has risen, since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, from 200,000 to 400,000. In 1980, the security council issued a resolution saying that these activities had "no legal validity" and constituted "a flagrant violation of the fourth Geneva convention". It decided to establish a commission "to examine the situation". Israel refused to co-operate with the commission and the security council responded with another resolution "strongly deploring" Israel's refusal. "We cannot stand by and do nothing", Mr Bush told delegates to the UN. He was talking, of course, about Iraq. But in the case of Israel, we not only can do nothing - we do do nothing. EDIT: Be advised that the attached file is a picture of a graphic nature.