War and Majority

Excellent.BTW, I just read a review of the Shrub's former speech writer who says that his job was to, "provide justification for a war."Isn't that nice?No, I don't think that most people think all-out war with Iraq is justified, simply because the Bush spin machine keeps saying tha there is "solid evidence" and "sure signs" that Saddam Hussein isn't complying with the UN resoolutions, but they never, ever provide any evidence whatsoever.I heard the spokesperson respond to a question from the press that addressed this lack of evidence in the form of an attack, saying that people who wanted evidence didn't trust the American government.I say, "DUH! Why should we go to WAR, piutting thousands of troops' lives on the line, without a clear reason?"

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Saddam is building a large arsenal.

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He is?

I'd like to know if this is true as well.

By your reasoning, the US should get to invade and bomb the hell out of any country with a leadership that WE think needs to go.How insanely arrogant and short-sighted.Why don't we then invade and bomb:Cuba
Ireland
Several African countries
Several South American countries
North Korea
ChinaIt is NO MISTAKE that half of the American public believes that we are attacking Iraq in retaliation for 9/11. That is the administration's carefully-crafted lie to get people to support it.Iraq is no more of a threat to us than Cuba.Why didn't we attack Iraq all those years ago whe Saddam was at war with Iran? He was just as cruel and crazy a bastrd to his people then as he is now. He just isn't useful to us any more.It might be good for his people that he will be gone, but don't try to say that Bush et al are invading for any kind of humanitarian reasons.It's the oil.We want to put in a regime that will do what we want so we can get to their oil.

I don't actually believe that Iraq has WMD.We have been assured that they do, but I don't think the evidence is there.Can you show me some?I's readily change my mind if you could show me some firm evidence that they have them.By contrast, North Korea actually has WMD.Why aren't we invading them?Oh, and I'll bet that we have banned weapons that we claim not to have, but nobody is able to bully us into coughing them up.You made no comment at all about the rest of my post, including how we used to be fine with Hussein's barbaric treatment of his people. So, the "humanitarian" issue is a silly one to consider when deciding the moticves of this administration.In addition, what about this administration's success in misleading the American public into thinking that Saddam Hussein is responsible for the September 11 attacks?

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I chaulk this up to darwinism at work, one less moron to spoil the gene pool.

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Your compassion is truly inspiring.

I always think that compassion is deserved.It is our compassion that keeps us from becoming cynical, callous, dehumanizers.Too late for some, I suppose.

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I guess Iraqi scientists who have defected and said they are working on them, or have them is not good enough. I guess the Anthrax they acknowledged to have had is not good enough, I guess them using BANNED scuds and other missles isn't proof enough.

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Links to sources, please.Don't you think if there was a "smoking gun" of a threat to the US that the administration would be waving it before us?All we have are "maybes" and implications, no hard evidence.

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I guess the proof you are looking for is an iraqi supplied
chemical weapon going off in another US city.

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No.

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But I am sure where ever you are is quite safe so keep the head in the sand.

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Calm down, war-monger.

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North Korea WOULDN'T have had WMD if Clinton and Carter had been able to do anything except talk and hope.

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Oh, so Bush calling North Korea "evil" had nothing to do with them feeling threatened and ramping up their program?They are right to feel threatened. They might be next.

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But now that do have nukes dealing with them is a bit more complicated than dealing with Iraq who can be stopped before they can cause any more harm.

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WHAT HARM has Iraq done to the US???Like I said, the humanitarian issue is moot, because we didn't care what Hussein did to his people back when we gave him lots of money and weapons.

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Living in NY I know who is responsible for 9/11. Osama and a weak administration that did nothing when terrorists attacked us before. As to the rest of the nation? I am already quite certain that a good number of Americans are almost legally brain dead, that kind of stupidity does not surprise me.

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So, it's perfectly OK with you that the Bush administration has very intentionally lied to and misled the "brain dead" American public in order to whip up revenge feelings for Iraq, which had nothing to do with Sept 11?Holy crap, you really will go to any length to support Bush's regime, won't you, including excusing intentional misleding the public, won't you?

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That said, Osama AND Hussain would like to see the deaths of a great many Americans.

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And so would a great many more people in many other countries, both before thie current invasion of Iraq and most certainly now that we have done it.

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I could care less about the rest of you post which is why I didn't address it.

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Now who is hiding from the facts?

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You are saying the war is about oil, how about addressing my claim that Iraqi oil production is miniscule and that the oil we would get control off is not worth the effort?

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It's not a miniscule amount of oil, sorry:The New York Times Upfront | Current Events for Grades 9-12"Critics of U.S. policy say the Bush administration's plans to invade Iraq have less to do with weapons of mass destruction than with a U.S. desire to control a major source of oil for decades to come. Iraq's known oil reserves, 112 billion barrels, rank second in the world, behind only Saudi Arabia."

War in Iraq: The Oil Factor* Representatives of major US oil companies have been meeting with Iraqi opposition leaders. Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the US-funded umbrella opposition organization, told the Washington Post that "American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil."* The Bush administration has close ties to the oil industry: both President Bush and Vice President Cheney worked in the oil business. Forty-one senior Bush administration officials were former oil companies executives or have substantial stockholdings or other financial ties to the industry.* In congressional testimony in 1999, General Anthony Zinni, then commander of the US Central Command which includes the Middle East and Central Asia, stated in congressional testimony (April, 13, 1999)that the Gulf region, with its huge oil reserves,is a "vital interest" of "longstanding" for the US, and that the US" must have free access to the region's resources."* All five permanent members of the UN Security Council have international oil companies with major stakes in regime change in Iraq. According to the Washington Post (Sept. 15), the US isusing the promise of access to Iraq's oil as a bargaining chip in its negotiations with Security Council members. "It's pretty straightforward," former CIA director James Woolsey told the Post. "If they [Security Council members] are of assistance, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new [Iraqi] government and American companies work closely with them."

OK, I think I understand.You think it's fine for the Bush Administration to mislead the public into believing that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. Either that or you are too fundamentalist in your Republicanism to admit that what they did and are doing was/is terribly wrong.You were under the mistaken belief that Iraq didn't have much oil, so you didn't believe that we were invading to get their oil, but when I pointed out to you that Iraq's known oil reserves were in the neighborhood of 112 BILLION barrels, second only to Saudi Arabia's, you do not admit that you were not properly infomed.You suddenly run away from the conversation, and the facts.Must be nice to keep your head in the sand, to quote you back to yourself.It looks an AWFUL LOT like this war is about the Bush regime wanting to get control of Iraq's enormous oil reserves, but it appears that your fundamentalist belief in your conservativism will not allow you to admit it.I also refer you to message #66 in this thread for more evidence that this is a war primarily about oil, and not about saving the Iraqi people.If we waged war to save people from horrible dictators, we would have been at war in Africa a long time ago, and we would have gone to Afghanistan long before Sept. 11.[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 03-26-2003]

So, do you believe it is perfectly fine that the Bush regime has deliberately misled the American Public into believing that Saddam Hussein is somehow linked to, and responsible for, the Sept. 11 attacks?Do you think that Bush's "axis of evil" rhetoric had nothing at all to do with North Korea feeling threatened and ramping up it's nuclear program.

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Iraq is sitting on approx 112 Billion gallons of oil, its current output is not worth going after. (3.5 Billion Barrels a Day pre 1991 levels or 1.3% of the WORLD OUTPUT)

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No shit their CURRENT output is low. That, according to what I have read, is partly due to infrastructure and other problems, not because they don't have much oil. Much of Iraq is unexplored for oil, and they also have a lot of natural gas yet to be extracted as well.Did Oil Drive the US Invasion of Iraq?"While its proven oil reserves of 112 billion barrels ranks Iraq second in the work behind Saudi Arabia, EIA estimates that up to 90-percent of the county remains unexplored due to years of wars and sanctions. Unexplored regions of Iraq could yield an additional 100 billion barrels. Iraq's oil production costs are among the lowest in the world. However, only about 2,000 wells have been drilled in Iraq, compared to about 1 million wells in Texas alone.Iraqi Oil Production
Shortly after its failed 1990 invasion of Kuwait and imposition of resulting trade embargos, Iraq's oil production fell from 3.5 million barrels per day to around 300,000 barrels per day. By February 2002, Iraqi oil production had recovered to about 2.5 million barrels per day. Iraqi officials had hoped to increase the country's oil production capacity to 3.5 million barrels per day by the end of 2000, but did not accomplish this given technical problems with Iraqi oil fields, pipelines, and other oil infrastructure. Iraq also claims that oil production capacity expansion has been constrained by refusal of the United Nations to provide Iraq with all the oil industry equipment it has requested."Consider this, or if you had read my links you would have seen this.

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The war is going to cost approx 75 Billion, rebuilding the country as well as the oil infrastructure will cost approx 20-100 billion. The oil contracts are not worth nearly that, approx 40 Billion. So you do the math... How is 3.5 billion barrels of oil a day, OR 40 billion in contracts worth at the best 95 billion, the worst 175 billion. It makes no sense.

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Well, I agree that it makes no sense in the long term, but let's also remember that oil in texas is pretty much drying up. Bush and his oil buddies are going to have to look to other sources of oil if they are going to survive.

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Saddam now is claiming to use chemical weapons you say he doesn't have,

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Chemical weapons are not WMD. [added by edit 3/28--I am wrong. Some chemical weapons are certainly WMD, such as mustard gas. We shall see if he has them, won't we?] They might be illegal for Hussein to have, but we certainly didn't care that he used them on his own people when we were funding him and Rumsfeld was photographed smiling and shaking his hand.Besides, back when he was fighting Iran, we gave his military lots of training, including training in torture and interrogation.

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if we cross some imaginary line going into bagdad.His troops are outfitted with the latest in chemical weapon protection. Yet I am the one with my head in the sand, I am the one being cynical. Perhaps in YOUR short sighted liberal brain YOU are UNABLE to even contemplate the fact that we are actually there to take care of someone who needs to be removed from power.

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So, why aren't we also waging war and taking out the leaders in Africa, North Korea, South America, China or the Balkans?The government of Afghanistan was a hundred times more insanely-murderous and oppressive and cruel to it's people than Saddam Hussein was to the people of Iraq. Yet Afghanistan didn't get our attention until they aided and abetted someone who hurt us directly, in a big way.There are dozens of crazy, murderous dictators who abuse and oppress their people around the world. Why don't we go "liberate" those countries?I think a large part of it is oil, and I also think that it's possible that the funamentalist Christians are cheering this on (and pulling strings) as well. Bush also made that comment about the assasination attempt by Hussein on his father.I also think that this kind of thing is simply what George Bush Jr. is most comfortable doing. It's very easy to wage war.

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And the last time I checked Bush wasn't in office during the late 70's or 80's to do anything about Saddam massacring Kurds, however by your logic if we didnt do anything then we have no right to do anything now.

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Well, Rumsfeld was sent to Iraq by Ronald Reagan to make nice with Hussein, and we knew then that he was a very very bad man who did very bad things to his people. We knew he had nuclear aspirations, we knew he was using chemical weapons, we knew he was a ruthless, crazy dictator who murdered anyone who got in his way. We gave him money and taught his soldiers how to be better at torture, interrogation, and killing.It's a bit rich for you to say that we "didn't do anything about it then." We IGNORED it, and gave him money and training so he could do it MORE EFFECTIVELY.

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It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math, or sort through the evidence(both sides) and come to a conclusion. You however seem to be stuck so far to the left that you refuse to see any contrary evidence, your short sightedness is not my problem. I, along with the majority of the nation, understand why we are there.

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No, the majority of the nation, 51%, think that we have invaded Iraq because they believe that Saddam Hussein is responsible for the September 11th attacks!!So, whould you support an attack on the dictators in Africa and spend buillions to rebuild their countries? What about China; should we invade them because they have oppressed and killed the Tibetans?By your reasoning, we should support the idea that India should invade Pakistan in a preemptive strike, and the same support should go to South Korea for invading North Korea preemptively. Is this what you are suggesting would be a good idea? Lots of instability all over the world?

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And btw I am a moderate republican who understands what needs to be done to make the world a little bit safer for those like you.

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The world SAFER? I predict that this war will only make things much less safe for Americans. I predict that it will make it much more likely that a fundamentalist moslem dictatorship will take over in Iraq eventually as well as promoting radical anti-American sentiment throughout the Arab and Moslem world, making terrorism more likely. I think that we will have to work very, very hard to gain back our prestige and credibility internationally. I think this war has made our future dealings with North Korea even more difficult.[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 03-28-2003]

OK, I think this will be the fourth time I have asked.Do you think it is OK for the Bush regime to have intentionally misled the American people into thinking that Saddam Hussein is responsible for the Sept 11 attacks on the WTC?There is NO evidence that Hussein had anything to do with it, yet Bush's speeches regarding the war constsntly invoke Sept 11th. It is calculated, deliberate, and immoral to mislead the public this way.Do you think that we should support India if they attack Pakistan preemtively (or vice-versa)? Should we support South Korea if they attack North Korea preemptively?Do you deny that North Korea has a right to feel threatened after Bush's "axis of evil" comment and now this war in Iraq?If getting rid of dangerous dictators was the reason for us being in Iraq, why haven't we invaded several African countries, Pakistan, Several South American countries, etc.? Why didn't we do anything about Afghanistsan before?

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So now is oil the main reason or not? That seemed to be your stance.

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I think it is primarily about the oil/money. There are other probable reasons, though, as I have stated.

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And I never mentioned CURRENT output, I was talking about PRE Gulf War output. Thanks for putting words into my mouth.

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Well, since 90% of the Iraq is unexplored for oil, and they might have another 100 billion barrels, and Iraqi iol is very inexpensive to produce, I can't imagine WHY a US President, Vice President, and 40 or so presidential staffers, each of whom have significant ties to the iol industry ties to the oil industry, would be interested in gaining control of that country.

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Lets see we could have supported a fundamentalist ruling power in Iran that had taken US hostages, or.. supported someone who appeared to be pro-US.

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Or maybe we could have not gotten involved at all! Or, if we hated Iran so much, we should have been over there fighting ourselves.Instead, we continued supporting lunatic dictators. We still do this.

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Or maybe we should have closed our eyes and pretended the mid-east didn't exist. What would YOU have done differently?

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I would have put all of our best scientists and engineers on the long-term job of increasing all fuel-efficiency, and also on the task of finding alternate sources of fuel, so we didn't have to be so dependent upon middle-east oil. I would have made tough mandatory fuel efficency requirements for the auto industry, despite their protests and attempts at lobbying.The very best thing to do is make it so we don't need their oil, or at least not as much of it.

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Weapons that can kill hundreds of thousands of people are weapons of mass destruction?

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Sorry, I was wrong about some chemical weapons not being WMD.

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And if he uses them what then?

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Then people will die. The inspections were working, but we wanted war before it got to hot in the summer, so we weren't going to wait.

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Do you honestly think he would only use them to thwart an attack? That he wouldn't give them to terrorists to use against the US?

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So far, we don't know if he has them or not because we didn't let the inspectors have enough time. (I do agree that he should have been watched much more closely by the UN and was allowed to string the UN along.) We know he is willing to use them because he has, but I wasn't aware that any chemical weapons were found since Hussein was ordered to destroy them all after the first Gulf War. Have they been?

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How much less safe can it be for Americans?

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A lot.

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They were attacking us BEFORE the war they will be attacking us after the war. Does that mean we should do nothing but wait for it to happen?

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Wait for WHAT to happen? What kind of terrorist activity was Iraq planning against the US? What strong ties to muslim fundamentalists does Hussein have? bin Laden and other muslim fundamentalists HATE Hussein, because his government is secular and they believe all Arab countries should be religious and fundamentalist.Bin Laden is probably laughing his ass off right now, and is thanking the US for sowing the seeds of hatred and fear of the US in the Muslim world that will only help his cause. We also did a lot of work for him in getting rid of Hussein.

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Do I think Bush has the right to mislead the public? Yes, its his job to bolster his support for his actions. If Clinton can make a big deal about the word "it" and convince the nation that oral doesn't count then Bush can make tenious connections between Saddam and Bin Laden.

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There is simply no comparison between Clinton being coy about getting blown by an intern and the Bush regime conspiring to mislead the American public in order to bolster support for a war in which our citizens will die and be asked to kill others.There is no comparison. None at all.

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edit: Perhaps being in NYC (Wall Street actually) on 9/11, my wife worked in the WTC, my step-brother did as well and died, makes me more willing to see the connection and why the war is justified. If that is the case and is irrational forgive me and my seeing things into non-existant threats. /end edit.

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Understandable, to be sure, but now, more than ever, it is important to take action in the appropriate place and not to inappropriately push our weight around in the name of "preemptive strikes" just because we feel angry about Sept. 11.We are killing people over there, and Americans believe that it's because of Sept. 11th.

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You do know that there are Al Qeida forces fighting in Iraq now correct? While Al Qeida and Saddam might hate each other, they hate us more.. and as the saying goes.. "you're enemies enemy is your friend"

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Yes, and they are in the Kurdish-controlled north. It's no wonder Turkey is so jumpy about the Kurds being there. Oh, wait, we are fighting along side the Kurds in the north, too. Hmmm...

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North Korea has been building arms for long before Bush said anything.

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Yes, but they certainly didn't feel compelled to slow down or stop after his comments, either, did they? It was a stupid, stupid, thing for him to say. He also completely alienated the government of Iran, which has in recent years been becoming more moderate and less fundamentalist.Bush is a diplomatic nightmare and just might bring on WWIII.

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Why don't we do things about other dictators? Because our national interests don't lie there at the moment, we have other things to attend to, it wouldn't accomplish enough? Replacing Hussain with a more pro-US government WOULD accomplish something so he is a priority I would guess.

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We have tried that before, and it has ALWAYS come back to bite us in the ass. We helped oust the democratically-elected government of Iran and replaced him with the pro-US Shah, a murderous dictator, and the people overthrew him and we got the fundamentalist government of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

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Shraf one last thing, in your opinion, knowing what was done in the past and that it can't be changed, how do you think we should have handled Saddam if he continued to string the UN along. Meaning, say we did give him more time, and in that time he failed to prove he had disarmed, what should the UN have done? Knowing full well that France/Germany would never autherize the use of force due to their oil contracts with saddam.

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I think if we had given the inspectors more time and let Hussein kick them all out the UN might have gone along with a real coalition force.Bush pissed everyone off right from the start by telling the UN that he was going to invade Iraq no matter what they said. All the while, people kept asking him where the imminent threat was, and he kept saying that there was one but that he couldn't tell us any specifics.If we start invading countris that might sell arms or WMD to terrorists, then we need to attack at least half a dozen countries around the world, including Pakistan which we currently support.For that matter, WE have given money to Hussein, with which he may have used to buy weapons and fund WMD research.Preemptive strikes will lead to everyone hating and fearing us, and what does that lead to?Terrorism.

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And regardless of if you are pro-war or anti-war please support the troops(screw Bush he isn't putting anything on the line other than his political future) they are the ones fighting, they are the ones who have made it possible for us to even have this discussion in the first place.

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The thing is, the troops in Iraq are not protecting my freedom. The ones in Afghanistsn, maybe, but not the ones in Iraq.I do support them and wish with all my heart that they weren't there at all in the first place. It's a little too late for that though.

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Bush prepares endlessly for three or four election debates head-on with his opponent. Blair gets it - to a surprising extent ad hoc and unprepared - several times a week from his principle opponents. it keeps them sharp.

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...or, requires them to be sharp in the firat place.Despite all of the rehersals and prep for his presidential debates, Bush sucked anyway.

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The american media, and gov't are known liars.

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I think that the media used to be better at actually challenging authority instead of allowing itself to become a propaganda tool of the current regime.I mean, Kronkite actually disapproved of the Vietnam war and criticized it on national television. Can anyone imagine that happening today?Over the past several decades, we have let our government deregulate our news sources, so that now huge conglomerates like Time/Warner and a handful of others rule our airwaves. They are much more interested in profits than in their responsibility to critical analysis and investigative reporting.They are not about to bite the hand that feeds them, so they are not about to let any of their reporters hold any powerful politician's feet to the fire.