BS: 'a totally needless war'

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Nov 03 - 01:19 PM

"Dragged" into wars, Strick, "dragged". Drugs are things you take to treat illnesses or get high.

I understand that what you have described the USA as being (isolationist) is how you and many other ordinary Americans feel about the USA, but it's not how the rest of the world feels. The rest of the world sees the USA as the most interventionist and aggressive major power in recent history, and is very nervous indeed about it.

You're right that the USA doesn't have enough troops (foot soldiers, I mean) to take on another adventure...or to even stabilize Iraq effectively. That's true. But that doesn't stop the fools running your government from trying to bit off more than they can chew anyway.

Karl Rove, chief advisor to Mr Bush, decided some time ago that fighting short, decisive wars in small places was a good way to go, and would keep Mr Bush popular long enough to win the next election...and winning appears to be all that matters to Karl Rove. He has no moral stand on anything, but he plays to win.

Whether he turns out to be right about the next election remains to be seen. I think he may also have bitten off more than he can chew with the Afghan-Iraqui adventure.

Iraq did not attack the WTC, any more than the Spaniards blew up the Maine. Handy excuses result in "splendid little wars", but this one may not be so splendid in the long run. The Mexican incursions you mention were done by Pancho Villa, who cleverly enticed the USA into invading and attacking HIS bitter enemies in Mexico. The Americans went all the way to Mexico City and made life miserable for Villa's revolutionary opponents, but never got near Villa himself. How ironical. He even looked a lot like Saddam... :-)

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Nov 03 - 12:11 PM

Move one step up in the business food chain from the shop floor, and that "bazaar mindset" is more or less how things are done in our parts of the world as well. And the same goes for politics and diplomacy and negotiating.

Lying, cheating, bullying, blackmail, pretending to break off negotiations, flying into a rage... Nothing alien about any of those.

The war with Iran was artificially induced by Saddam's regime, encouraged by the USA and its friends. An alliance between Iraq and Iran would make sense for both countries, and for the rest of us as well. And it would be the last thing that the Al Qaida version of Islamism would wish to see.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 03 - 11:51 AM

Bear in mind that he was raised in an environment more like an open bazaar than a small town with shops. The difference extends to a lot of things about how you see and treat with others. The bazaar mindset is geared around face-to-face adversarial negotiation. One may lie, exaggerate, beat one's chest or threaten in order to win a bettrer position in the bargain. Shop keepers, on the other hand, find better long term leverage in putting known process on everything and not doing much in the way of negotiations on the shop floor. It is less anchored to their egos.

I doubt Iraq would slide over to an Iranian alliance.

But I have been wrong before, IIRC....


A

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Nov 03 - 10:50 AM

The puzzle with Saddam was, if he didn't have the wepons he was said to have had, why wasn't he fully cooperative with the inspection requirements from the start, instead of dragging his feet?

And the answer that makes sense to me was that so long as he was believed still to have stocks of poison gas, that was a major factor in holding down those Iraqis who didn't like him. After all he had shown he was willing to use it against Iraqis. If, through the inspection process, it had been demonstrated that he didn't have them, there would have been a real possibility of his being overthrown.

If liberation for Iraq had really been the objective, that would have been a more promising way of it being achieved, especially with a massive military presence on the Iraq borders, as a kind of guarantee aginst there being some of those WMDs after all. It would have been easy enough to extend the "no-fly zone " to cover the whole of Iraq in the event of an uprising, which would have transformed the situation.

But, as in 1992, when a previous Bush sat on his hands while the poeople he had urged to rise against Saddam were butchered, largely from the air, an Iraq freed by its own people was not what was wanted. Such an Iraq would not have been the kind of puppet regime that was wanted. It might even decide that on balance it had more in common with Iran than with America.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Nov 03 - 10:22 AM

Australian ABC TV is showing an interesting documentary about the CIA and teh secret wars thay have been waging since the end of WWII. Even including the faking of an attack on US ship that started Vietnam. There's just too many to detail here, including Guetamala, Iran, Panamana, Chile, ....

Americans ask "Why do so many in the world not like us?"

It has been said that Sept 11 was a strikeback aginst the US which had been in ferment for many years.

I don't know - I'm just an Aussie mate! ....

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Peace
Date: 09 Nov 03 - 01:59 AM

Maybe mid-East stabilization. No, it doesn't fly with me. The US wasn't dragged into Vietnam. Or Iraq in the 90s, or Afghanistan, or Korea, or WW 1 or WW II. I don't see how the bombing of Pearl Harbor can be construed as the US being dragged into war. And as to The War to End All Wars, everyone was dragged into that. Have a good evening, buddy.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 09 Nov 03 - 01:53 AM

Strick, the US doesn't want to "get" the oil in Iraq: it wants to control it.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Strick
Date: 09 Nov 03 - 01:32 AM

You mustn't forget the incursions, however slight, from Mexico in the early Teens. ;)

Clearly that's why the US had to be drug into each of the major wars in the last century. Or why so many Americans favor of withdrawing our forces from Europe and most of Asia. Regardless, the Iraq war can't be solely about oil, can it? I mean, think. If all anyone wanted was Iraqi oil, they could get it by simply removing UN sanctions. What about the fact that the oil would go to France or Russia instead of the US? Who cares? Oil is "fungible". Every barrel of oil either nation bought from Iraq would be a barrel the didn't buy from the Saudis or Kuwait or Nicargua or Venesuela. More for us either way. Why bother with war when you could get the oil with a stroke of a pen?

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Peace
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 11:51 PM

Strick,

The notion that the USA wants to be isolationist is a little off, excuse me for saying. It needs oil, and lots of it. It needs much that is produced elsewhere. No one--since the Canadians when fighting for the British in 1812-14--has invaded the USA. (We did apologize for burning the White House down.) Saying the USA would like to be left alone by the rest of the world just ain't a fact. Saying it don't make it so.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Strick
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 11:32 PM

No, Little Hawk, the US is more like a puffed up Bobby on his beat. "Do everything exactly according to my instructions and surrender unconditionally to my will or I will run you in quicker than you can say 'Jack Robinson'." He may take himself too seriously, even use his nightstick too quickly, but he's nothing like a tiger. You really must try to learn the difference between the two. Some day you might encounter a real tiger and you know the story of the boy who cried "wolf!". (Forgive the mixed metaphors.)

Frankly, the US is not a threat to anyone right now, we haven't the military power to take on another adventure. And, however anyone abroad might view us, we're really rather the rest of the world went away and left us alone. Isn't that funny? We're can't be both isolationists and imperialists, now can we?

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 10:43 PM

Like I said. We may have to get out of Dodge in the next two or three years.... Startin' to look a whole like like 1937 Germany...

I'm hearing folks on C-Span every day that remind me very much of folks who are ripe fir pickin' by the fascists. Yeah, these folks ain't got one original thought in their pea minds but, by their comments, they are perfectly ready to "follow orders"...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 10:42 PM

Unfucking believeable! Maybe they are just saying it because he went to school there!

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 10:39 PM

Bloodthirsty lot, aren't they?

A

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 10:28 PM

A bit of absolutely unbelievable news: Yale University, who has been predicting elections since 1916 on the basis of economic trends, states that Bush will win in 2004 by a larger margin than previously predicted.

I cannot believe that the American public can possibly be that callous, stupid or naive.

Link:Yale Prediction for 2004 election.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 09:50 PM

Nobody trusted Saddam, Strick! But he was no real threat to the USA, he was simply a former hit man of theirs who failed to complete the hit (on Iran) and then went into business for himself (Kuwait) which wasn't appreciated by the Big Boss in Washington. He was a toothless cat, from the point of view of the USA, but not necessarily from the point of view of Kuwait or Iran or Saudi Arabia. He was an almost toothless cat from the point of view of Israel...who might yet one day acquire one or two teeth some day if not watched carefully...and he was being watched very carefully (as well as bombed and starved for about ten years, illegally in my opinion).

To take your analogy in another direction, what would you do if your problem was not a little domestic cat in your home who sometimes bites, but a ravening tiger who lives next door and says..."Do everything exactly according to my instructions and surrender unconditionally to my will or I will kill you and eat you quicker than you can say 'Jack Robinson'."

That ravening tiger is the USA, and its attendant jackals are the UK, Australia, and one or two other countries on occasion. Never mind about Israel...they are more like a barracuda on amphetamines, not that they don't have reason to be paranoid...they most certainly do...but they are themselves about 50% to blame for that.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 09:25 PM

McGrath..I figgered everyone would assume I meant % of voting public..I guess you can't overdo explicit references..*grin*

Bobert... Australia, maybe..but I have too uch 'stuff' and I'm too blamed OLD! I guess I'll sit here and be the resistance movement...since I'm only 40 minutes from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Maybe I can burn an effigy of G.W. on his lawn...one of those in his fligt suit..

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 09:07 PM

"...they only need to convince 50.1% 49.9% of the people "

If they could get 49% of the people voting for them, that'd mean virtue everyone who voted.

In practice 25% would be ample.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 08:48 PM

Bill,

I'm not sure that The Dems can get anyone *elected*, given the unlevel playing field... First, the Emerican people in general don't give a crap who's in power ot they'd vote, Second, the guy with the most money wins 93% of the time and... Third, the Repubs have control of the folks who *oversee* the election counting...

Personally, I'm looking for other countries to move to 'cause this one is lookin' more and more like USS Titanic about an hour before she went down...

Highjacked and Bushwacked...

You and Rita might want to start lookin' to before the great exodus and property values plunge...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 08:37 PM

stop this nonsense

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 08:35 PM

I think Americans have lost control of their government

the US has not totally lost control of its government,...the mechanisms are still there. But this government is getting cleverer at lulling the populace into not BOTHERING to exercise that control. The spin doctors are working overtime to sell war, loss of privacy, environmental degradation,,etc...as necessary things to keep our security and 'image' intact. They sell this crap in different ways to different segments of the population...and they only need to convince 50.1% 49.9% of the people that they are at least the lesser of two evils.

It 'may' be that too many dead kids in Iraq, along with 87 billion other reasons will push their luck and smoke & mirrors too far, but ANYTHING can happen in a year. If the greedy Democrats don't spend all year berating each OTHER, maybe they can field a candidate who will

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 08:23 PM

Back to the questions I was askin' Teribus, et al, before the invasion. If Saddam was (or is) such a bad man, why not just assasinate him, rather tham drop over 30,000 bombs and fire millions and millions of artillery, tank and small arm rounds at Iraqi's that, ahhhh, weren't Saddam????

Why is this such a difficult qiestion to get a straght answer to???...

Me and the Wes Ginny slide rule figured that if Dan Rather could get within 4 feet of him then an assasin could have gotten close enough to get the job done....

Oh yeah, firgot that Perle and Wolowitz had this plan going back to 1992 that called fir the occupation of Iraq, fir stategic (think oil here) reasons...

And where the heck is Teribus now that his plans have gone left??? Opps, make that right. Very right...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 08:17 PM

Which is (more's the pity) not to say that he will be so removed at the end of this term. Money talks, and he's a formidable fundraiser.



I assume you mean bloodlessly?


A

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 07:38 PM

Bruce said: But that will not make me glad that Bush is in power. He is an equally dangerous man, and he controls the most significant military power in the history of the world. THAT, my friend, is friggin' scary.

I'm afraid I can't argue with that. But look on the bright side: At least he's in a position where he can be removed bloodlessly by constitutional means. Which is (more's the pity) not to say that he will be so removed at the end of this term. Money talks, and he's a formidable fundraiser.

But one can always hope for that end, which couldn't be said for Saddam.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 07:26 PM

Les in Chorlton, if the US has a bad enough time in terms of dead soldiers it will make them more reluctant to do the same thing again for a while. That's what we all thought about Viet Nam and so far it has not been a deterrent. I wish you were right.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Peace
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 02:37 PM

perplexed: I am missing your point.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: GUEST,perplexed
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 01:29 PM

Well, speaking of laws of the jungle, as the dominant beast on the planet, you've got to ask yourself if you're willing to allow another smaller beast to run around and do what it will on what you consider your turf. Saddam is someone we've manipulated in the past, to our ends. We attempted a trade embargo to force him to become compliant with our wishes once again. When a lesser beast challenges a greater one with noncompliance the outcome will eventually end up in some kind of confrontation. Who will win? The answer seems clear enough. If you were the most powerful entity would you chose to allow another much smaller and weaker one win in a showdown? Whatever the exact reasons for our being there are, hmm, let's see, strutting our world dominance thing by seeking economic assurances via the control of the region's resources to bolster our insatiable profiteering, we are there, establishing our dominance over yet another region outside our "official" borders. Of course, we've been doing just that, exerting our dominance in the area, for a long time. We've been doing it to maintain our stature, our place at the top of the heap. Does this struggle to maintain our standing ever allow us to relax our posture? No. Just because you're paranoid, it doen't mean they're not out to get you.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 01:17 PM

"It had not been successful, and never would have been successful."

The UN inspectors had been allowed back in, and were getting increasing cooperation. Hans Blix and his colleagues have gone onrecord as saying they wanted to keep going. And here we have evidence that Saddam was willing to allow them to be reinforced by thousands of US troops, and to permit elections monitored by the US and France.

It was being sucessful, that was the problem. That was why the process had to be cut short.

Indeed one additional reason for haste could have been fear that, once people realised how weak the regime actually was, with no reserves of poison gas and so forth, there would have been real prospects of a successful internal revolution, producing a regime which would not be ready to cooperate in asset stripping Iraq to help Bush's friends.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Peace
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 01:14 PM

1) Anyone who thinks Saddam Hussein was a garden-variety SOB needs to have another look at him. He had demonstrated his willingness and ability to use chemical weapons (on the Kurds), and he did terrorize his own people. The behaviour of his troops in Kuwait in 1990 was criminal, and his disregard for life or anything resembling morality was evident in his own country and elsewhere. It is clear to me that Iraqis were unable to change their own government, and it is equally clear that they wanted to.

2) The United States has had a history of being 'cops of the world', and the Monroe Doctrine of the 1820s and all the 'Manifest Destiny' crap from the 1840s has hung on in both the popular and political mind. It seems quite normal for the USA to engage in imperialistic activities. The ability of the United States to wage war is awesome, and that ability has been beneficial to all of us (World War II is the example that comes to mind). However, more and more the USA has tried to act in place of the United Nations.

3) The United Nations has had its cajones clipped. It is a quite impotent organization. (My country has a long history of involving itself in 'peacekeeping' efforts sanctioned by the UN. At present, Canada has troops from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and JTF2 stationed in Afghanistan. But, Canada's refusal to participate in the Iraq War has cost us much. We have had and continue to have our economic peepee slapped by the United States, and being loyal to the United Nations has done us no good.) That said, it should be evident to all that both the United Nations and the United States have changed substantially over the past fifty years.

I will not, however, blame the American people for their government's policies. I think Americans have lost control of their government, just as the United Nations has 'lost control' of its members. Personally, I am glad Hussein is 'gone'. But that will not make me glad that Bush is in power. He is an equally dangerous man, and he controls the most significant military power in the history of the world. THAT, my friend, is friggin' scary. Coupled with a New World Order, none of this scenario bodes well for the future of humankind. Was this war needless? Maybe, and maybe not. But then, that's no longer a hypothetical question, is it?

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: GUEST,Les in Chorlton
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 12:51 PM

i have chipped in my bit above but might add that if the US has a bad enough time in terms of dead soldiers it will make them more reluctant to do the same thing again for a while.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 11:48 AM

Well, yes. But you aren't moved to stomp his brains out, are you?

The problem of Iraq was difficult, many faceted and far beyond the capabilities of the Bush gang. They don't do subtle. Evasive, underhanded, secretive are the closest they can get.

There's a LOT of blood in the sand that didn't need to be there. We're not just talking about upsets or spitting matches; we're talking about human beings torn apart by flying lead and steel, tissues and muscles ripped to shreds, leading to death. American death, Iraqi death, the fact is that VERY FEW of those deaths involved anyone who was originally involved in the situation or actually causing it. Maybe the Hussein boys qualify.

From this perspective I would say needless is an excellent word, but not because Hussein would have made peace, as Deda pointed out.


A

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Strick
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 11:13 AM

Nothing much good comes from war, it's true. In this case, a few back channel feelers wouldn't have been enough to convince most people that Saddam was sincere. After all, he made promises and broke them repeatedly over the last 13 years.

I have a cat who bites. Be warned. Just because he lets you pet him and purrs, don't be surprised if he suddenly tires of being petted and bites you anyway. I have scars to prove it happens. Why trust an animal or human who behaves that way?

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 10:11 AM

McGrath of Harlow said:
The thing is, they weren't willing to wait and keep on putting on the pressure, and see whether it was going to be possible to achieve a satisfactory outcome without war.

Ah, but that HAD been tried, unsuccessfully and ad nauseam. It had not been successful, and never would have been successful.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 09:45 AM

The thing is, they weren't willing to wait and keep on putting on the pressure, and see whether it was going to be possible to achieve a satisfactory outcome without war. Perhaps that wouldn't have beenm possible - but it seems pretty clear that one reason for pushing ahead with the war was a fear that, if they didn't move quickly, the justifications for the war would be eliminated. (And of course the electoral clock was ticking as well.)

I am sure there are a good number of people among exiled Iraqis who saw war as the right way and the necessary way, as there often were among exiles from Eastern Europe during the Cold War. I can see why they might think that way, and in their circumstances I can readily imagine doing the same. But what has happened to Iraq so far, and what is happening now, and looks like happening in the future, does not look very likely to pan out at all well.

I think one very likely outcome will be that, at some point, Washington will redefine this whole exercise as a kind of punitive expedition; it will just pull out, and leave Iraq to sort itself out, in circumstances far worse than could have been achieved by a forceful carrot and stick operation, without war.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: greg stephens
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 08:16 AM

McGrath: your latest thesis, like your previous ones, seem to me to involve believing Saddam hussein's announcements. i thin there is a tiny flaw here.
   Also, whatever your views, "totally needless" seems a bit strong. If you were prepared to listen to views contrary to your own, I think I bit of a chat to the vast number of Iraquis totally supporting the Americans might open your eyes.You opposed the war, and fair play to you. I find the arguments of those people I know with family in Iraq compelling, interesting, and challenging to my pinko-liberal world view. And a lot of them are 100% pro the American/British adventure.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Raptor
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 08:04 AM

Don't you people sleep?

No wonder I can't reach Little Hawk Before noon!

Yeah The war was bad
Yeah bush sucks

Go To Bed

Raptor

SHEESH!

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 06:53 AM

'Regime change in Iraq was possible without war'. Possible yes, eventual yes, although to what? Africa gives many scarry examples of change is more or worse. Don't get me wrong, european empires lie at the heart of most of these problems.

All the options are bad but we cannot re-run history and start again. I guess we would need to calculate how many people would die in each option.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 06:31 AM

It wasn't a question of Saddam really wanting peace, but rather of him being desperate to avoid a war in which he had no hope of winning, or surviving, except possibly as a hunted fugitive.

During the run up I remember people backing the Blair-Bush line in arguments. No, there would be no war - the troop build-up and the sabre-rattling was intended to avoid war, because under pressure, Saddam would crack, and the reasons for war could be eliminated.

And this seems to have happened - except that the Bush-Blair axis was determined to have the war.

Elections supervised by the USA and French within two years, and thousands of US troops allowed into Iraq carrying out thorough inspections. Does anybody think that the outcome following the war is actually going to be any better than that?

Other vile dictatorships have been allowed to be dismantled. Pinochet was allowed to take a ceremomial place as President while his regime was eliminated. Regime change in Iraq was possible without war.

However, without war asset stripping of Iraq by Bush's friends in big business would not have been possible. Moreover, keeping large armies massed on Iraq's borders for years if need be, to maintain the pressure that was getting results would have been seen as incompatable with the US election timetable. On the other hand a quick war and a profitable peace wasa anticipated as helpful in avoiding regime change in Washington.

So advice from their own experts that it just wasn't going to be that simple, and that a war would be likely to have all kinds of disastrous results were brushed aside.

From an history exam paper in 2050: "The Great War and the 2203 Iraq War shared one characteristic. They were both at the same time unnecessary and inevitable." Discuss and evaluate this view.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 03:06 AM

It would be hard to find a war that wasn't in the final analysis, needless, given the fact that there are almost always better alternatives than open aggression. (One exception I would make is Vietnam's attack which deposed the Khymer Rouge...there was genuine need for that.)

In this case the provocateur and aggressor was the United States, and yes, the war was absolutely needless...unless your need is to secure vast oil reserves and strategic new bases in a vital region. Ah, well then...

Hitler's need for attacking Russia in 1941 was to secure vast agricultural areas and vast oil reserves in a vital region.

Stalin's need for attacking Finland in 1939 was to occupy disputed land in the Karelian isthmus. He figured it would be easy to overwhelm the Finns...it proved to be very, very hard indeed.

The Japanese need for war in 1941 was to secure vast oil reserves in the Dutch East Indies and break an American-imposed trade embargo (probably established partly to drive Japan to war).

Saddam's need for war when he attacked Kuwait in '91 was to recover a disputed territory which had been carved out by the British empire to serve as an oil source...territory which Iraquis considered to belong to Iraq.

Argentina's need for war in the Falklands was to secure disputed territory considered by them to be part of Argentina, and provide a distraction for their public so they would forget about domestic abuses by the military government.

And so on...

All clear cases of aggression. All needless, considering that there were far better alternatives of a more peaceful sort available. All the above cases of aggression (except Vietnam's, and to some meager extent, Stalin's) failed miserably in the end, as I expect this American one shall too.

In the meantime, a lot of people will die, and politicians will pontificate about "freedom" while spreading destruction. In an armed dispute, one party's "freedom" is achieved specifically by the destruction of the other party's freedom...to be who they are and live as they will and desire.

Aggressors believe not in law, not in freedom, not in justice...but in force, power, the law of the jungle. They always say they are doing it for someone's freedom, and their soldiers and populace are often (in fact usually) naive enough to believe that. The Germans certainly did in 1939 and 1941.

Had Saddam not already existed, America would have probably found the need to invent him, given the strategic situation in the Middle East. I can only wonder who their next chosen number-1-bad guy-threat-to-the-entire-world will be?

He will probably be swarthy, from a small country, and have a beard or mustache. He will probably be Muslim. He will almost certainly be located in a strategically important area. Whaddya want to bet?

One thing a huge and ever-expanding military empire simply must have is a new enemy to fight every few years...otherwise how can you justify building and maintaining more weapons than the whole rest of the World put together?

This while people live hopeless lives in decaying ghettoes...even on the home turf of "the land of the free and the home of the brave". Freedom, is it? Ha! Whose freedom, I ask? And at what cost? Not my freedom. Not that of Iraquis. And not yours either, unless you are among the ruling elite in the centers of world financial, media, and military power.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 08 Nov 03 - 02:43 AM

I know I am going to regret this but.........

... I don't even know wher to begin.

On Sept 11 some people declared war and carried out a major attack on the US, the nature of which we have never seen before.

The US did not really know what to do but clearly felt that 'something must be done'. Bush did lots of things including Afganistan and Iraq. No doubt he had lots of other reasons for doing these things.

I will try to stick close to Iraq even though it's neither possible or even an honest thing to do. The UN and the US had a long term commitment to get change in Iraq. A number of options were possible including,
1. carry on hoping that the sanctions would eventually cause change,
2. invade when the US did,
3. invade later,

Given what Saddam was doing to lots of people in and around Iraq 1. is not without its problems. Given the history of evil regimes, later can be a very long time (USSR, Korea, China, lots of places in Africa and Easten Europe). So, 3 might be as effective as 2 but with lots of dead and tortured people in the meantime.

Iraq has lots of politically motivated gansters and people who want the US humiliated. They are trying to stop the re-development of Iraq. I guess they would do this after any invasion. Maybe later would be better. All the options are bad but we cannot re-run history and start again. I guess we would need to calculate how many people would die in each option.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 11:39 PM

How can you say this war was needless? Haliburton and Bectel are certainly getting our money's worth out of it. Haliburton, hmm isn't that Dick Cheney's old firm. Surely a coincidence.

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Amos
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 11:38 PM

Well said, Deda!

A

Subject: RE: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: Deda
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 11:31 PM

I completely agree about it being a terrible war, one that we were forced into by dishonest leaders with their own agendas, based on vengeance and greed. They continue to lie and misspeak about it all the time, even now, and I no longer believe a word they say. I am pretty much at the stage of disregarding mainstream US media almost entirely, and relying on BBC, alternative radio, blogs, etc. However, that being said, if Saddam had sent any messages, no matter what, he would not have gotten a hearing -- not because the Bushites were determined to go to war no matter what, but more because Saddam had said one thing and done another over and over and over and over again, for so many years, that he was way past the "Cry Wolf" stage; anything he said could pretty much be disregarded, just based on his own record. It doesn't work to try to make Saddam into a peacenik, or into an honest or trustworthy negotiator. He wasn't. He was a liar and a megalomaniac and a creep. But there have been plenty of those, in the recent history of the world, and in the not-so-recent, too, and we can't take on the task of eliminating them all. This was and is a bad war, but not because Saddam really wanted peace.

Subject: BS: 'a totally needless war'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Nov 03 - 09:12 PM

As the body count rises it's becoming clear that this was a totally needless and counterproductve war - in terms of all the reasons given to justify it.

Weapons of Mass Destruction, links with AlQaida - noone sincerely argues for either of those. They fall back on the fact that Saddam was a vile ruler, and the claim that this was the only way to change things for the better. And on that alone the case for the war rests.

It's a powerful argument, and even though it could never make this war a legal one, it's possible to argue thta the moral,imperatuve was more important.

But if you read this article in the Guardian on Friday, that argument seems to start to crumble - Saddam's desperate offers to stave off war -

"In the few weeks before its fall, Iraq's Ba'athist regime made a series of increasingly desperate peace offers to Washington, promising to hold elections and even to allow US troops to search for banned weapons. But the advances were all rejected by the Bush administration, according to intermediaries involved in the talks."...

...Gen Habbush ...repeated the invitation to allow Americans to search for weapons and added an offer to hand over a suspected terrorist, Abdul Rahman Yasin, who had been convicted in the US for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre. The regime would hold elections within two years, and the intelligence chief even offered to fly to London to discuss the issue in person...

Mr Perle...told the New York Times he had been told by the CIA not to pursue contacts with the Iraqis. A US intelligence source insisted that the decision not to negotiate came from the White House, which was demanding complete surrender.