Posted on 02/12/2003 5:08:41 AM PST by SJackson
It was hard not to be swayed by Secretary of State Colin Powell's compelling presentation at the U.N. Security Council. One prominent opponent to using armed force, General Norman Schwarzkopf, changed his position and now supports military action to enforce U.N. Resolution 1441. However, there are those, including our NATO allies -- France, Germany and Belgium -- who inexcusably refuse to budge from their anti-war stance, no matter how strong the evidence is that Saddam Hussein poses an intolerable risk to world peace and security.
For twelve years, the world has tried unsuccessfully to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, including poison gas and biological agents. Even those who oppose war concede that Saddam Hussein is capable of immediately launching attacks using both gas and disease and will soon have a nuclear capability. They do not even deny that Hussein murdered thousands of Kurds and Iranians using chemical weapons and permanently maimed thousands more with those same weapons.
President Bush and members of his Cabinet point out that not only does Hussein continue to develop and hide weapons of mass destruction, but he is also capable of providing them to terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and many others committed to waging a religious war against Christians and Jews. Osama bin Laden, in his last alleged recorded message to the world, stated that the U.S. must convert to Islam to avoid further terrorism.
In the years before World War II, the leaders of France and Britain tried to save themselves by sacrificing Czechoslovakia to the Nazis. We now know there were some in high places prepared to sacrifice Poland as well.
The world was lucky that King Edward VIII (the Duke of Windsor) was forced to abdicate. With war clouds gathering over Europe, the Duke and his wife-to-be, Wallis Simpson, left England and went to Germany to, as Mrs. Simson said, "Be entertained by Herr Hitler." An unforgettable image is that of Edward giving the Nazi salute on one of his trips to Germany. Meanwhile, while Hitler's legions occupied Europe, millions of American isolationists cried out against U.S. involvement in Europe's affairs.
History is now repeating itself. Once again appeasers, isolationists, and others who believe in peace at any price are marching. In opposing military action against Iraq, some say that the destruction of Al Qaeda should be first on the U.S. agenda. Of course Al Qaeda needs to be confronted, and we are doing just that. However, the fight against Al Qaeda will go on for many years since, according to the U.S. security reports, Al Qaeda cells exist in 62 countries. Last weekend, according to The New York Times, the Saudi Arabian government said that after a regime change in Iraq, which the Saudis support, it will expel U.S. forces from its soil, bowing to the demands of Al Qaeda. Fighting Al Qaeda does not mean, however, that we should ignore those like Saddam Hussein, who would arm that terror organization and others with weapons of mass destruction.
Others claim that North Korea, with its demonstrated nuclear capability, should be first on our action list. To the countries immediately affected by North Korea's belligerence - South Korea, China, Russia and Japan - the U.S. should say "It's your problem to solve," while we prevent ballistic missiles and nuclear arms shipments from North Korea to other countries.
In a bizarre editorial, Newsday recently objected to reinforcing our military capability in South Korea, urging, in effect, more appeasement.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Well, that's one Democrat who gets it...
No problema, we will then have a nice large base of operations in Iraq, now won't we?
Not to mention CONTROL of 10% of the world's oil. These are consequences of your actions and lack of actions on our behalf, Saudis. Your power over us will have been ended.
We are witnessing the dawn of a new Middle Eastern dynamic, realigned in our favor by their own dastardly acts.
George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Perhaps a corollary of that axiom should be: Those who know only historical slogans should quit using them to support their causes.
For example, amateur historians remind us impatiently that the reason Iraq must disarm (which no one else is doing) is that Hussein promised to disarm at the end of the Gulf War in 1991.
Of course, they neglect to tell us that the "promise" was made at the point of a gun. You don't "freely" give your money to a mugger when he says, "Your money or your life." Promises and actions that are coerced are morally meaningless.
But citing Hussein's promise isn't the only way history is misused.
History is invoked to justify the U.S. starting a war against a foreign country (Iraq in 1991, Serbia in 1999, and now Iraq again) because "history tells us" we have to stop the latest incarnation of Adolf Hitler before he proceeds to conquer the entire world. As though Serbia or Iraq could be compared to the power of Hitler's Germany.
And the history-sloganeers remind us over and over that millions of lives would have been saved if only the Allies had stopped Hitler at Munich.
A historical slogan can be a wonderful thing. It allows you to reduce all the complexities created by billions of people to a simple equation of Good vs. Evil, white & black, us & them.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FRIENDS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN, THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY, A.N.S.W.E.R., HOLLYWOOD AND THE GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE.
Another proud American moment brought to you by the One-Percent Party.
In terms of traditional military, no. In terms of WMD threat, certainly.
What a maroon.
One has to believe that Koch really knows what's going on, so this is nothing more than an attempt to ride an issue in order to publish an opinion.
The real intent of the French and their allies is a couple of steps ahead of the general population's knowledge/understanding. (To be sure, the Bush administration certainly knows what's happening.)
Here's a useful analogy: the allies started planning what post-war Europe would look like years before the Nazis surrendered in 1945. In much the same manner, the French are manovoering/arranging what the post-WOT world will look like.
For the French, their interest lies not in the rather mundane question of whether or not the US will prevail against Iraq, Iran & N. Korea during the Bush's 1st & 2nd administrations.
The more pressing issue is how France and her allies will neutralize and counteract US hegemony in a post-WOT environment. Clearly, the initial lines have already been staked out: use the UN for legitimacy/cover, appeal to liberals in the US and other anti-US activists overseas, and finally, have their own military/economic plan in place to compete with us in the global marketplace.
The constant parroting of how the French are weak, etc is unbecoming of the intelligence of most FReepers. Let's focus the amazing resources of this forum on the deeper, longer term issues.
BUMP!
Like how they surrender quickly and easily and smell bad?
(sorry I couldn't help myself)
But the former Mayor crosses the line of rational debate, when he compares the Iraqi problem with that of Socialist Germany, in 1938. The Iraqi people have not exhibited much technological expertise, and very little innovation in several centuries. The Germans in 1938 were among the very top nations in technology, and were in fact about to break out of the pack of major nations in aeronautics. Had it not been for a mistaken turn in their nuclear program, they might have beaten us to the Atomic bomb.
Iraq has had to hire European technicians to assist in all of the various mischief making weaponry programs, that have us so concerned. The only comparative testing of Iraqi average intelligence, of which I am familiar, shows the usual gap, found between the First and Third worlds. Were it not for oil, it is unlikely that Iraq would have ever obtained any sort of position in the modern world.
I do not say this to be unkind, but to make an historic point, relevant to Koch's silly comparison. While I am sure that there are well educated Iraqis of culture and intelligence, the population as a whole, has not on average displayed anything like the German population as to a capacity for modern warfare.
Hitler in 1938 was about to embark on a campaign to conquer all of Europe. In what followed, he came closer to succeeding, than a casual view of the past might indicate. Sadam Hussein is a mischief maker, par excellent, but he is no potential world conquerer. In his own immediate region, he is probably no match for the Turks and probably not for the Israelis or Iranians.
This is not to say that he should not be curbed, before he arms terrorists, with whom he identifies, with dangerous pathogens or chemical or nuclear devices. But let us keep things in proportion. We lose our credibility, when we so grossly exaggerate.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
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