Posted on 10/11/2002 11:44:30 AM PDT by LibertarianInExile
If anyone doubted George Bush's intention to go to war with Iraq, that doubt should have been removed when the United States said it would "thwart" the return of the arms inspectors to Iraq until it got a new Security Council resolution.
Of course, the resolution the United States wants is just a rubber stamp to start the war. It is designed to force the Iraqis to reject it and thus provide the international cover that Bush wants for his invasion.
The meeting between the Iraqis and the arms inspectors in Vienna was quite successful. The Iraqis agreed to everything. They brought four years' worth of records and turned them over to the United Nations.
It's a shame that so many of the television commentators are so ignorant that they all, with only one exception that I saw, misreported the meeting in Vienna. They kept saying the Iraqis kept the presidential palaces "off-limits." That is factually incorrect.
Hans Blix, the head of the U.N. inspectors, has made it quite clear that his organization works for the Security Council, and since the only resolutions that exist are old ones, those are the ones he must be bound by. Among those is a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 1998 by the secretary general and Saddam Hussein. It says simply that before the presidential palaces are inspected, Iraq must be given 24 hours' notice, and a diplomat must accompany the inspectors. That certainly doesn't mean that they are off-limits. They are all available for inspection under the conditions the United Nations agreed to.
So, as things stand now, the inspectors can go back, all the housekeeping details have been agreed to, and they can start their work by Oct. 15. The Iraqis, so far as we know, will honor their agreement in regard to unconditional access. If the president had been sincere about his concern for weapons of mass destruction, he'd presumably be happy. Instead, he intends, if he can, to wreck the present agreements and force through an insulting, war-provoking resolution. He wants war, not inspections, and destruction, not disarmament.
By the way, another point of ignorance on the part of TV smiley faces: A couple of them seemed to think that if the president is opposed to the agreement, then it is null and void. Hans Blix works for the Security Council, not for George Bush or Colin Powell. Unless the Security Council tells him differently, he's sending his inspectors to Iraq whether Mr. Bush likes it or not.
So what is the United States going to do? Send F-15s to shoot down the U.N. plane? Without a majority on the Security Council, the United States cannot stop the inspectors from returning to Iraq. Maybe it will get a resolution, and maybe it won't. I hope the United States doesn't.
For too long the United States has bullied the United Nations, using blackmail and threats in order to win votes from little countries. We have used the United Nations when it suited our purposes and ignored it when it didn't. I, too, hope the United Nations shows some backbone and tells Mr. Bush: "Either obey international law or take a hike. And by the way, pay your back dues on the way out."
It's a fact that there has been no evidence produced that Iraq has any weapons of mass destruction. The worst-case scenario for Iraq is if it's really true that it doesn't have any. You can't prove a negative. If Iraq has some, it can produce them; if it does not, Iraq is out of luck. Bush and his warmongers will never believe either the Iraqis or the inspectors. Bush wants his war, and he will have it, come what may.
There is absolutely no evidence for any of the above assertions, and they are ludicrous. In any event, nothing is stopping Iraq and the UN for doing their inspection thing while Bush ramps up for war, and if Saddam really gives the inspectors a free rein to go anywhere, any time unannounced, well no one would be more pleased than Bush, and the war won't happen. Of course the chances that that will happen are slim to none. If Saddam had nothing to hide, he would have shown off his new cleansed kitchen long ago. And Reese knows that. But Reese is a shrill and dishonest shill for the dark side. Some day he will cross the River Styx never to return.
"It says simply that before the presidential palaces are inspected, Iraq must be given 24 hours' notice, and a diplomat must accompany the inspectors. That certainly doesn't mean that they are off-limits."
LOL
No, the original title was apparently "Bush CAN'T take no for an answer" rather than "won't".
I clicked through the link supplied at the top of the article and the original title matches the one posted at the top of this thread. I prefer to do my own research on such simple matters -- took all of about five seconds.
Apparently Cyber Liberty didn't bother to check the title of the original article and chose to inject a slight-of-words deception (see his 2 post). Thus becoming blind and waiting for another blind person to follow. You know the cliché: the blind leading the blind.
I don't really see how this matters in terms of meaning but I guess if you are going to post garbage you had better be accurate.
My opinion on the article's merits is irrelevant and that's why I didn't offer one. That said, so is your opinion irrelevant to the issue of title accuracy. The point of my question to Admin Moderator was whether the person that posted the article changed the title. He didn't. He posted accurate.
The Admin Moderator in post 4 told the person that posted the article to use the original title. The Admin Moderator should have directed that at Cyber Liberty because it was Cyber Liberty that implied -- by slight-of-word deception -- that the person whom posted the article should post something other than the original title.
Fabulous! The truth has never been spoken more plainly! Your statement should be sent to all conservative media, radio and newspaper personalities.
On the other hand, Cyber Liberty was intent on creating a deception, IMO. A gross error which sucked in the Admin Mod., then you too got sucked into the chain of events that started with one person's intent to deceive.
Guys like you give libertarians a bad name. Which may be the whole idea. Divide and conquer, huh?
Of course, he thinks Pat Buchanan is the only conservative politician remaining.
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