Posted on 02/05/2003 1:44:05 PM PST by kattracks
No, Saddam started it by invading a sovereign nation (Kuwait) in 1990. He aggravated the situation by continuing to doggedly pursue WMD, flaunting UN resolutions and forging alliances with Al Queda and other terrorists.
This will be an immoral war because we are going to wipe out thousands of people based on the miniscule possibility that Hussein is just going to, on a whim, launch an attack on us or our allies.
The danger is not so much a direct attack from Saddam's own Iraq, but a proxy attack facilitated by Iraqi chem/bio weapons, Iraqi-supplied intelligence and training. The possibility, far from being 'miniscule', is more like an inevitability, given Saddam's mentality and record of war-atrocities.
Furthermore, the inevitability of civilian casualties cannot be cited as a reason not to go to war. By your mis-reasoning, Saddam is allowed the widest latitude to develop WMD and do mischief, while the US is held to the strictest standards of tolerance and passivity.
And there will be no 'butchering' of innocents. The US military goes to unprecedented lengths to minimize civilian casualites; and those casualties deserve to be balanced against the countless innocent lives that will be saved by riding Iraq (and the world) of this mass-murdering dictator.
The remainder of your post is mostly mawkish sentimentality about the futility of war -- any war -- and paranoid meanderings about the supposed dangers of our own leadership. These musings only illustrate your own mental confusion and flight from the facts and hardly deserve a response. Suffice it to say that you have not made your case!
I wonder how they'd react to that "intelligence?"
-PJ
This shows how open-minded you are to concrete evidence. What is your opinion of the Al Queda chem/bio training camp in Iraq, overseen by Iraqi intelligence and used to train AQ terrorists for operations all over the world? This is a war on terror, not simply on OBL, or any single person, country or entity. Growing and irrefutable evidence indicates that Iraq, NK, AQ and other countries and terrorist organizations are working hand-in-glove to destabilize western civilization (each for their own unique objectives, true enough). What will you say when this short war is over and ALL the evidence of Saddam's murdering, lying, banned weapons and links to various terrorist organizations is laid out in the glaring light of day? No more wiggle room then. Will you apologize for calling President Bush 'stupid'? Will you get on board and support our efforts, or will you prefer to cant and carp from the sidelines?
I will look forward to that.
What would it take to get you to change your mind?
Given the overwhelming case that has been presented so far, the chance that Saddam is not dangerous enough to require military action is only slightly less probable than that the value of Pi is not between 3.0 and 4.0. However, if there is a distinct lack of actual WMD, facilities and scientists to corroborate what we have been hearing from the Bush team after we remove Saddam, I too will frankly admit I have been deceived.
But I am very skeptical of this sort of thing, like the Gulf of Tonkin, the Maine as an excuse by the government to get the people riled up for war.
This is not an analogous, rush-to-war situation. The press has been, for the most part, antagonistic or at least skeptical, requiring the administration to make a very clear and cogent case, which they have done, imo. Also, this war has been debated for over a year now, in various forums: newspapers, news forums like FR, colleges and universities, talking heads on all major TV networks, and lastly in the halls of Congress. No one can claim they were pressured into acquiescence or that the facts were withheld from them, or that the Congressional resolution was misused beyond its original intent (as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was).
I'll always believe Bush is stupid because he is.
That is a stupid statement.
LOL, no, I was merely remarking on the fact that your opinion is not a very popular one around here. Cheers.
Congratulations. You've learned how to make friends and influence people.
No matter how anyone rationalizes this war through WMD treaty evidence, we are the aggressors. We are the ones who are going to start it.
So, when a criminal has a gun to the head of a hostage and a police sniper takes him out, the police started it?
That's not enough to justify butchering a population in my book.
It is an unfortunate side effect of war that innocent people are killed. But it won't be because the US military is targetting them. It'll be because Saddam uses them as shields. That's how cowards fight.
After all, the Twin Tower attacks, the worst terrorist event in history, were not committed with WMD.
Wide-body jets loaded with fuel that are crashed into buildings full of thousands of innocent people aren't considered weapons of mass destruction in your book? Have you been smoking the drapes?
Two paragraphs into your argument and I can't even bring myself to go on. You really are deluded - and that's not name-calling, it's my opinion of the state of your brain.
Let's take your concept further...
The U.S. should build a giant igloo in the frozen tundra of the Alaskan Arctic and call it the "new" UN facility.
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