i absolutely agree. also, while there may be wars that need to be fought, there are definitely many more that don't and never should have been fought.
nice points vvv (kind of). i'm not gonna bother with a point by point rebuttal. just curious as to why you're posting them on a thread which doesn't really aim to discuss any of them. (i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not just a crazed liberal like TigerO) if it's supposed to be an attack on the current regime, i think it totally misses the mark, as we just had 8 years of democrat leadership (in case you forgot) for which you make no mention of their competence in addressing the above mentioned faults. (faults which you suggest were exacerbated during the 90s).
its funny how this thread veers off into a wide critique of american society. The people that are against attacking Iraq really just have a problem with American society, and the Iraq thing is just an excuse. I don't think that anybody is REALLY going to be upset simply because we get rid of Sadam. Also now that the house and the senate have both passed the resolution, we know that dissent in the congress isn't that strong either.
no, an attack on our shortsighted politics in general that have never been very good at coming to terms with consequences, as i have no time for ideology or other political games that are constantly being played without solving any problems. to a large extent ideology is being instrumentalized like games played by children in kindergarten, mere name calling for the sake of hoping to undermine credibility through compartmentalizing. not that i think that too many voters are still falling for such cheap games anymore, these games are rather net contributors to the ever decreasing faith many people have in their politicians nowadays as evinced by numerous studies. and, the actual point is, we have no good reason to go after saddam, nor do we have the money, but we have many good reason to do sthg about the problems in our country. brent scowcroft, national security advisor to presidents gerald ford & george bush senior: Don't Attack Saddam It would undermine our antiterror efforts http://www.opinionjournal.com/edito...ml?id=110002133
talking about, in the hope that one day they may be tackled, about very real problems this country has, should by no means be confused with an attack without reason, quite the contrary. a status quo leaving much to be desired and that is unchallenged poses the real threat to the future of the usa, not the fact that the status quo is being challenged on grounds of insufficiencies. the reason some people went down in history, is, inter alia, that they were key agents in change towards the better, however uncomfortable it may have been at the time. of course, the opposite also applies, re history. and, if any one is using excuses, it's the warmongers in washington who are trying to sell us an absolutely pointless, albeit in human, economic and diplomatic terms, highly expensive war. The threat from Iraq is exaggerated. Other despotic countries have or are seeking weapons of mass destruction (Syria, Libya, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia), have invaded their neighbors (Syria, Libya, and North Korea), and even used chemical weapons (Libya in Chad during the 1980s). Moreover, Iraq's military has been devastated by the Gulf War and a decade of sanctions. Americans should ask why the United States -- half a world away -- is more concerned about the Iraqi threat than are Iraq's neighbors. http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-19-02.html -------------------------- The suspicion will not die that the Bush administration turned to Iraq for relief from a sharp decline in its domestic political prospects. The news had been dominated for months by corporate scandals and the fall of the stock market, and the November elections were shaping up as a referendum on the Republican's handling of domestic social and economic issues. Bush is reversing a half-century of strategic doctrine on the grounds that the new enemies America faces are not like the risk-averse Soviet Union. But at the time George Kennan and others formulated the theory of deterrence, the Soviet ruler had long been Joseph Stalin, not known for being risk-averse. There is no evidence that any of the countries in Bush's axis of evil -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea -- are not deterrable according to the same logic that worked with the Soviets. In making war against Iraq, Bush is risking not just American lives but America's good name. His high-handed attitude toward our allies has already earned the United States unnecessary ill will. Unlike the Gulf War, however, the United States is going into this conflict with little international legitimacy or support. http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/19/editors.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- as far as congress goes, again, that is nothing new: Will Congress blink again? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 24, 2002 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2002 Col. David H. Hackworth History has repeatedly shown that the military solution is the least-desirable way to resolve conflict. Smart leaders know that "supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting" â as Sun Tzu wrote years ago â and exhaust all other options before they unleash the dogs of war. Instead, our president seems single-mindedly obsessed with attacking Iraq. For months, the Bush war team has been talking up taking out Saddam and sneaking so many war toys into places like Qatar and Kuwait that it's a wonder our desert launching pads haven't already sunk from the weight of our pre-positioned gear and ammo. So far, the emir of Kuwait has been picking up the tab for the American muscle deployed outside of his palace that lets him sleep at night without worrying about Iraqi tanks roaring through his front gate, as they did in 1990. But probably a key reason President Bush is so keen on pressing Congress to sanction his unrelenting march to battle is because thousands more armored vehicles and tens of thousands of warriors are already on the move. Since it will soon be impossible to hide the buildup or cost, Bush clearly needs congressional consensus before the boys, bombs and bullets become the lead story on prime-time television. Now it looks as though Congress is about to give Bush the green light for his shootout with Saddam rather than standing tall and insisting that U.N. weapons inspectors get another go at defanging the monster. Almost 40 years ago, Congress kowtowed to another president from Texas and approved the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution â based on the repeated lies of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara that Red patrol boats had attacked U.S. warships on a supposedly routine mission off North Vietnam, which the senior admiral in the Pacific had predicted months before would provoke exactly this type of response and result in an escalation of the Vietnam War. Only Sens. Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska stood tall and voted "nay." When Morse chillingly predicted we'd lose the war and LBJ would go down in flames, most members of Congress responded that they were patriotically backing the president in a time of crisis. Before Congress blinks again, rubber-stamping one of the few wars in our country's history in which we've fired the first shot, the members should visit the Vietnam Memorial and read every name aloud on that black wall before blindly accepting their party machines' go-along-to-get-along directives. They should ask themselves: Do I want to be remembered as a William Fulbright â who pushed LBJ's bad resolution through the Senate, knowing all the while that he was repeating McNamara's spin â or as a Morse or Gruening? They should also match what the ordinary folks who elected them are saying against the national polls' war chantey, "Let's Push With Bush Into Baghdad." Last week, I visited four states, and all of the hundreds of average Joes and Janes I spoke with were for U.N. inspectors returning and our tightening the choke leash on Iraq enough that nothing gets in or out without going through a U.S.-manned checkpoint. A Vietnam combat Marine told me: "Certainly Saddam is a tyrant and a threat to his neighbors. But so are the leaders of Syria, Iran, North Korea and, for that matter, Pakistan. All of our comrades who died in Vietnam and those of us who vowed 'never again' will now again watch another generation march off to war without the approval of the American people." "Who'll pay for it?" asks another citizen. "We all know it'll be our kids. They're the ones who will pay, as it has been since the Revolutionary War. Those who reap the rewards are of a different category." Congressmen and congresswomen, which category are you? Will you vote for your own political future or the future of our country and its current generation of defenders? Will you challenge the rush to war along with Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who said last week that giving Bush the same broad, unchecked authority Congress gave LBJ is tantamount to allowing him to start a war and saying, "Don't bother me, I'll read about it in the newspapers"? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Steel My Soldiers' Hearts" is here! One of America's most decorated soldiers, Col. David Hackworth, writes about the hopeless to hardcore transformation of the 4/39th Infantry Battalion and lays bare his most daring and legendary tour of duty. Col. David H. Hackworth, author of his new best-selling "Steel My Soldiers' Hearts," "Price of Honor" and "About Face," has seen duty or reported as a sailor, soldier and military correspondent in nearly a dozen wars and conflicts â from the end of World War II to the recent fights against international terrorism. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29035 btw, the nobel peace prize for jimmy carter was a very clear signal from the nobel committee against bush's agenda re saddam, sthg that has never happened in the long history of the nobel peace prize before. ------------------------------ brent scowcroft, national security advisor to presidents gerald ford & george bush senior: Don't Attack Saddam It would undermine our antiterror efforts http://www.opinionjournal.com/edito...ml?id=110002133
"tackling and talking about very real problems this country has should not be confused with an attack, quite the contrary. a status quo leaving much to be desired and that is unchallenged poses the real threat to the future of the usa, not the fact that the status quo is being challenged on grounds of insufficiencies. " You just proved my point. This opposition isn't about Iraq, it is just about being a good liberal.