Did you forget the anthrax so soon? Or did you buy the lie that the Czechs discounted the Atta-Iraqi meeting, when in fact he reaffirmed it? Last time I checked anthrax was a biological weapon.
Did you forget the ricin incident in Great Britain? The folks with the ricin are linked to Iraq.
How does that anything to do with Iraq at all? 19 men got into this country and highjacked four planes with box cutters. No chemicals, No bio weapons, no nukes.
Evidently you fell for the domestic theory on the anthrax. Did you forget about the first WTC bombing and its Iraqi connection, and forget the cyanide gas - a chemical weapon- which fortunately did not work?
Did you forget the Iraqi agent who attended the Malaysia meeting with the hijackers of 911? He made it back to Bagdhad.
And besides Sadaam there are a dozen other countries with crazy dictators that WMD programs that don't like us.
Yeah, there are. And some of them we're stuck with because they have succeeded in obtaining nukes; too bad we didn't stop them before they obtained nukes. If we had, millions of people would be alive today, and many millions more would be free.
Iraq, however, has gone further than to merely let people know it has WMD. It demonstrated the stuff. It invaded Kuwait and Iran. Hussein has expressed a desire to annex other nations and has even done it, albeit briefly.
Iraq started the war, and Iraq ignored the cease fire arrangements and decided to continue this war. It's time to deal with the problem because it will not simply "go away."
We lived with it before 9/11- hell we lived with it for 50 years.
I for one didn't like seeing 200 + marines get killed in Lebanon. But we didn't do anyhting about that and so, we ended up getting more and more people killed because of our perceived weakness. Lebanon is Syrian property now, for all practical purposes, and is a haven for terrorism which did, does and will murder more Americans. Ignoring the problem empowers terrorists- it does not make them wimp out and go for less important targets and it sure as heck won't make them retire and get into a harmless hobby. And regimes like Hussein's keep the profit margins up enough to ensure that terorists have a home and base of operations. I for one didn't like the Kobar Towers bombing, the scud launches against a country which wasn't even in the first Gulf War, nor the people who pay families to train their kids to be human bombs. I for one didn't like seeing our embassies blown up and hundreds of Kenyans killed or maimed just because they had the misfortune to walk by or work there. I for one didn't like seeing US sailors turned into human peanut butter between the decks of a US warship in a Yemeni port. I for one don't think it is acceptable to just allow people to take unlimited hits at you without responding or taking their arses out. I for one don't think we should twiddle our thumbs while Iraq or Iran drop mines in navigable waters to cripple third party shipping. I for one don't think we should sit idly by while Iraq sends assassins and thugs into our country to harass American citizens who were formerly Iraqi scientists or officials. I for one don't think it is funny to see Americans get decapitated on video or to read about Americans being tortured because our enemies have no respect for us owing to our annoying willingness to simply forget people languishing in prisons or to forget people who were incinerated for Greater Babylon or some twisted religion be it Islam, pan Arabism, or its more westernized marxist-socialism. Just because you find the attrition rate acceptable doesn't mean it is ethical for you to do so.
I for one don't forget it when someone declares war on us. It's hardly "preemptive" to strike when someone does so.
I don't think you appreciate what a revolutionary foreign policy doctrine Bush is extolling.
There is nothing revolutionary about resuming a conflict when the cease fire has been violated, nor about responding to a surprise attack against all involved, nor about laying low a nation whose leader has threatened us or our citizens.
Why anyone would expect the rest of the world- even our allies- to accept a foreign policy that reserves the right to premptively attack percieved threats to us is beyond me.
Well, for one, there is nothing preemptive about this, and much of the rest of the world is with us, so it is reasonable to expect those will remain with us. And becasue people follow leadership, I expect more will join once we engage. Not that it matters.
What Bush wants- an unprovoked attack against Iraq (quibble all you want- that is what it will be)
Only a fool thinks this is "unprovoked." Saddam Hussein's support of Abu Nidal was more than sufficient for us to go after him long ago, as he and others have used Abu Nidal and other groups to try to cover their hand in the acts, attempts which at times failed to cover adequately. Assassination attempts on US leaders after a cease fire is an act of war. All have been engaged actively in trying to destroy or damage this country and its citizens wherever they can discreetly do so. And this isn't even mentioning the very violation of the cease fire is sufficient reason.
We're not obligated to treat Iraq as an equal, nor any nation whose citizens are not free, as "an equal." There is no obligation for us to "play fair," with regimes whose stated goals are to annex our allies, destroy our allies, bomb our bases, choke our trade, block our trade routes, or to threaten Americans, etc. A preemptive strike on Britain, for example, would be inappropriate and wouldn't come up in any case because Britain is no threat and does not threaten anyone, not even its own citizens. Iraq has and continues to threaten its neighbors, who are also our trading partners. We do not need to wait around to see if our enemies are true to their word.
is revolutionary in world diplomatic history.
Nonsense.
Not to mention, we don't live in an age where it takes two or three weeks for the enemy's ships to arrive. We live in a world where millions can be killed by a few, in the blink of an eye.
To expect the rest of the world to passively accept that and be happy with it is not realistic.
I don't care if they passively accept it or are happy with it. But I do expect a country which sank a Greenpeace ship to quite whining when we want to kill a notorious murderer who has already expressed his intentions. Notice that we do not preemptively strike France? That's because as obnoxious as the French are, they haven't tried to assassinate US citizens, they haven't invaded one of our allies or trading partners, they haven't tried to shoot down our planes, they haven't violated a cease fire, they haven't sent agents to meetings with hijackers in Malaysia, they haven't met with al Qaeda several times in Afghanistan and the Sudan, and they haven't gassed the people of Luxembourg.
(Of course, they sure haven't tried to stop such things, either.)
The survival of my country trumps our concern for the emotional well-being of France. We do not have to let pedophiles run preschools so we sure as heck shouldn't let mass murderers desiring to rebuild Babylon have nuclear weapons with which to blackmail their neighbors or ourselves.
Could the Iraqi's give WMD to AQ and could it be used here and kill thousands?
They can kill more than thousands. It's only a matter of time- and not much time, before they can kill hundreds of thousands or millions.
Yes. Just as easily a rouge Russian mercenary nuclear scientist could be working right now in a cave somewhere building a suitcase nuke for AQ as well.
Yes, but in this case we know where the "rogue" is and we know what he is up to, and we have been engaged in a war with him already, and we have patiently abided by all the international protocols and concerns and all it has gotten us are more dead Americans and many more dead Iraqis, threats to anhilate our allies, and a place for terrorists to hang out in a very strategic central location in the Middle East.
Is invading Iraq going to make us more or less likely to be the target of terrorist attack in the future?
Less over the long run. We know for a FACT that doing nothing results in an ever-escalating use of terrorism as a political tool not just for groups but for nations who use terrorists as proxies.
Fighting the NAZIS got us a lot fewer NAZIs. Executing a murderer means that murderer will never kill again, and if done swiftly and preferably with a rope so potential criminals will see how humiliating it is to die with a pantload, others will be reluctant to join the company of murderers. This isn't rocket science, it's common sense.
You know why the Arabs on 9/11 succeeded? The succeeded because Americans (and everyone but Israelis) had been trained to sit mutely, draw no attention to themselves, and do nothing when terrorists take over a plane. We were trained to "wait for the authorities," to expect a negotiation and eventual freedom even if a few Americans or Jews were picked out of the passenger lists and tortured and shot like a certain Navy man in Europe some ears ago. so when 911 came, there the people sat, and they watched in horror, frozen, as the hijackers slit the stewards' and stewardesses' throats and tok over the cokpits. And they stayed in their seats because the terrorists threatened them with an imaginary bomb. Heck, it wasn't even a real one. And because they sat there and did nothing, not only did they die, but their own plane and thoier own bodies enabled the mass murder of 3 thousand innocent people. It could have been far worse- it took over an hour for the buildings to collapse.
But on ONE plane things took a different twist, and the people, once told by the folks on the ground that other planes had become Islamic cruise missiles, resolved not to go out like sheep to the slaughter. they fought back, and thanks to them, the plane never struck its intended target, and lives were saved. And because of them Americans now know that no matter what anyone says, if there is ever an attempt at hijacking a plane again, they must attack immediately at the slightest provocation, and not wait for someone to get their throat slit, and not wait for the terrorists to take the cockpit, and above all, to not wait for the "authorities" to negotiate. If they do, it will be too late. If we had that saem philosophy all along, there would have been one hijacking in history and no one would have tried it again.
Many things could happen. It still doesn't mean it is going to.
I will guarantee you there will be escalating levels of terrorism if we do not go after Iraq. Fortunately, we are going into Iraq. And Iraqis will try to get off a few hits as they did the last time, but this time they won't have Saddam Hussein to run home to.
Bush's foreign policy is very radical and a break from hundreds of years of tradition and diplomatic history.
Nonsense.
It is radical and radical change brings about a million unforseen consequences.
The known consequences of inaction are too high. Inaction means that someone WILL use nukes sooner or later, because they would know they would get away with it. Not to mention, we won't be taken seriously nor will we be respected if we continue to hide or appease or ignore.
Bin Laden himself said that he saw America run away in Somalia and that was why he believed we would run on 911 and leave the middle east and all of the people there, to the very vicious attentions of his zealots.
We didn't have to run- we had at more than one time had Aidid in our sights and with split seconds to spare in his life; if Clinton had but given the order, the example set by Aidid would have prevented the Battle of Mogadishu, and the killing of both Amricans and many more Somalis there. And we would not have run away, and would not have shown the weakness which Bin Laden thought was our fatal flaw.
Fidel Castro and the Iranian leaders said much the same thing mere months before 9/11. Fidel said "I have seen her up close, she is weak, America is weak" and "together, we shall bring America to her knees." Weakness is always the problem. Weakness is why Iraq invaded Iran the first time- the mullahs had killed off or imprisoned the Shah's military personnel, and without leadership the Iranians were smoked for a while.
US weakness is why Iraq invaded Kuwait. Saddam believed we would sit idly by.
Weakness is why Buckley was tortured to death over a period of months- and this was followed by years of terrorism carried out by Imad Mugniyah. (Who also has made contact with al Qaeda since we kindly allowed him to breathe after once getting him into a snare years later because of another Clinton brain freeze.) We ran from Lebanon and our enemies then knew they had nothing to fear. And when you are no longer feared by your enemies, you will not gain respected from friends, either.
Sorry, your "imaginary fears" argument against taking action won't cut it with me.
Yikes, I see my caffeine is cutting out on me again.