IN RESPONSE TO ASSAMITE preface/disclaimer: i will quote each of assamite's arguments/rebuttals, after which i will respond. i will also sometimes go off on a slight tangent to more thoroughly cover a subject, to provide background information that may be useful in understanding my response. also, i do propose some theoretical and/or future situations in this response. i admit, they may tend toward the idealistic side, but i have tried to tone them down with practicality and realism, in the hopes that i will provide a realistic "best-case scenario" that our government will strive to attain, and one day bring to fruition.
I won't bother with your anti-Left freeperism, but the "Bush = exterminator, Saddam = cockroach" argument is extremely fallible, considering that Saddam is not the only person in Iraq, and that Bush's techniques are thoroughly uncomparable to the techniques of a bug exterminator.
heh. first of all it's not an argument, merely an analogy. if you're that desperate for ammunition, you need to do a lot more research before you open your piehole again (or type, for that matter)... but for you to say that "saddam is not the only person in iraq"... duh. i think the analogy works quite well. when you call the exterminator, he comes and kills all the pests (saddam, his sons, and the republican guard) in your house (iraq), but does his best not to harm any of your pets (civilians). however, he might accidentally spray an area your pet travels through, and inadvertently harm it. however, this doesn't happen very often, and usually when it does, it's minimal. i'm not saying this excuses any civilian casualties we may have caused or will cause, just pointing out that it may happen.
What about the loads of OTHER "evil dictators" around the world whose people need "liberating"? Why are we turning a blind eye to Liberia, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and sporking SAUDI ARABIA (Who ACTUALLY supports terrorists!)?!
Liberia, Zimbabwe, and Pakistan do not pose a threat to the rest of the free world. and that is the fatal flaw in your entire thought paradigm. you start firing off based on the assumption that the
primary reason we are warring with iraq is to liberate it's people. wrong. we declared war on iraq because saddam refuses to cooperate with UN mandates, and continues to produce weapons of mass destruction. do you think he's making VX nerve gas missiles so he can prop them up in a glass case in his presidential palace as decorations? no. and bush knows this. left alone, these WMDs would make their way into the hands of people who will use them against the US or it's allies -- either the iraqi military itself, or terrorists. as far as saudi arabia supporting terrorists, no they don't, at least not on an official state level. you know, i know, and everyone else knows that much of the money saudi oil barons make off the oil eventually makes its way into terrorists' pockets, but how do you plan to stop this? go into saudi arabia and cap all the oil wells? unfortunately, not even alternative fuel cars will cause the demand for oil to cease. gasoline is simply a minor byproduct of oil processing. most oil-based products go into things we all use in our everyday lives, such as plastics, lubricants, synthetic fibers, and the processing of other materials. if you truly want to help curb oil consumption, use only wood, glass, and metal objects (this means your house, your desk, your vehicle, tools of entertainment, etc) and wear only wool and/or cotton. yup. that means you'd better toss that computer out right now. face it: our lives depend on oil, and saudi arabia is one of the largest producers in the world; we can't just stop buying from them, unless you want to pay $5+ a gallon for gas, $200+ for a cheap power supply (you want the wires insulated, don't you?), and more exorbitant prices for almost everything you use every day. okay, next
And this war will kill more Iraqis and Americans than Saddam ever will in his life. Simply put, the U.S., along with the UK (Spain is contributing ZERO to the war - so much for the "coalition"), has TONS more firepower than Saddam has or ever will have. It's making "he gassed his own people" seem rather pathetic (Not to mention ironic, since the DoD has pondered using chemical weapons). By the way, I should mention that that happened back in 1988; let's just say that our view of Iraq and Saddam was a bit different that what it has been since 1991.
just because we have more firepower doesn't mean we'll kill more people. it means we'll level more centers of power of saddam's regime, and will better be able to destroy armored/reinforced vehicles and bunkers. also, our raw demolitions power isn't necessarily much stronger than saddam's (although we have a lot more missiles etc)... our power lies in the ability to launch a precision strike. if we so wanted, we could've sent one of the tomahawks into a specific window on a presidential palace, the targeting is that precise. this means that we will be able to accomplish more with the same destructive force, because we will be able to put that force where it will cause the most damage to our target. it also means that we will be able to fire at our target with 99.9% certainty that a missile won't overshoot it and hit a civilian area. would you rather we use SCUD missiles like the iraqis, that have an accuracy of less than 50%, often falling short, far, and/or wide of the intended target? oh, and just because the DoD "pondered" using chemical weapons, doesn't mean we came anywhere near actually using them. i would almost bet money that what you heard was a report of an e-mail from some radical right-wing NRA officer in the pentagon, of the mindset that we should level the whole place, who suggested the use of it. just because a few guys think it might be a good idea doesn't mean we do it. the president is there to make sure of that. and bush knows it would be political suicide to use chemical weapons. oh, and back to your very first argument in this paragraph, that we will kill more than saddam ever will. tell that to the families of men who have been killed by saddam's regime because uday fancied their wives. and to the families of those women, after uday killed them too. granted, saddam isn't quite as bad as uday, but he has a very tight political agenda within his country, and anyone who is contrary to that agenda is nixed without saddam batting an eye.
You know who recently launched a terrorist attack on American troops?
An American soldier.
An AMERICAN caused more damage to U.S. troops than the Iraqis ever will.
an american soldier who should never have been allowed to remain in the military after converting to a radical sect of Islam. he did this because he is sympathetic to the iraqis and to radical muslim terrorists. this man is a traitor to the country. what i find interesting is that you point this out as though it has some validity in an anti-war argument. if he hadn't done that there, he would've eventually just committed another terrorist attack later on on U.S. soil, a la the oklahoma city bombing. the only thing that would've kept him from harming anybody would have been to either imprison him or kill him before he did it. however, we did not have any idea he would have actually done this until he did it.
the next paragraph will be broken up into more manageable bitsWhat IS the actual goal in Iraq? Is it a pre-emptive strike against Saddam for desiring to use weapons of mass destruction (Has he ever said he would do that?), as first stated? Is it a punishment for violating UN resolutions against these weapons? Is it about the multitudes of oil there, as stated by the Bush Administration's slips-of-the-mouth? Or is it the liberation of the Iraqi people from a tyrant?
#1:
YES - does it matter that he
said he would do it? did hitler say he was going to go on a genocidal rampage before he did it?
#2:
YES - as phoenix pointed out, he did in fact have weapons in violation of U.N. sanctions. when we first had our camps near the iraqi border, four (banned) SCUD missiles were fired. fortunately, all of them went wide of their mark and exploded in unpopulated areas. also, as shown by the article pho was referring to, we have recently come across a camoflauged chemical manufacturing plant that has since been confirmed to have been used in the manufacture of VX nerve gas, and possibly other lethal chemicals for military use. as far as bush defying the U.N., i'm not sure where you're getting that. if you're referring to the use of force against iraq for noncooperation with U.N. weapons inspections and disarmament, the use of force was actually
explicitly called for in U.N. resolution 1441 that phoenix cited, which was finalized about 4-1/2 months ago. in that 18 week span, saddam has done j4ck and sh1t to disarm.
#3:
NO - again, as phoenix has pointed out, money from the oil wells after saddam has been removed from power will go back towards the reconstruction of iraq, and money from the oil will then be put in a U.N. trust fund to help the country as a whole. with regards to your usage of the term "slips of the mouth", no they weren't "slips". the U.S. government has openly stated their intentions for iraqi oil, as i have stated above.
#4:
YES/NO - although it will be a positive byproduct of removing saddam from power for reasons #1 and #2, this is not the primary objective of our war in iraq.
But in any way, the Iraqi people, like the women of Afghanistan back in 2001 (remember that?), are being EXPLIOTED by the warmongers in order to justify the wholesale bombing of the country.
erm, if i'm not mistaken, "wholesale bombing of a country" basically means carpet-bombing, i.e. flying armadas of bombers over the country dropping thousands of bombs, basically with the intent of leveling everything. every single missile fired by the coalition has been explicitly targeted at areas of power of saddam's regime, i.e. governmental buildings and presidential palaces.
By the way, what ever DID happen to the people of Afghanistan that we "liberated" a while ago? Certainly is a paradise there, right? Oh, right - feuding warlords, Northern Alliance banditry, women remaining under the burqa, the U.S. not lifting a single government. The feuding Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites are SO lucky to have the United States liberate them.
no, they are not in a "paradise", as they should be in ideally. however, our primary goal there, as it is now in iraq, was to remove from power a corrupt dictatorial government that either directly attacked us or our allies, or funded and/or harbored terrorists who attacked us or our allies (in the case of the taliban, they harbored and funded the al quaeda terrorist network). we instated a government there selected from rebels whose values are similar to ours, i.e. peace, freedom, and democracy. however, this government does not have as much power in afghanistan as we would like, and cannot control much of the country outside a few of the more populous cities. as a result, the feuding warlords and bandits and such run rampant in poorer, lesser populated areas outside of the major cities. however, we have our hands full trying to depose another enemy government, as well as continuing our attempt to eradicate the remnants of al quaeda in afghanistan. perhaps once things settle down a bit with regards to the war on saddam and the war on terrorists, we will be able to lend a hand and help afghanistan stabilize itself.
"We're at war" will NOT stop me from opposing it. This war remains UNJUST, and no amount of "support our troops" will change that. Frankly, I DO support "our troops", as they are human beings with family and all (my girlfriend has a brother in Iraq). I want them to come back in one piece. And that's why I want this war to END, so that they can come home.
your oppositon of this war is your opinion, and as granted by the constitution of the united states of america, you are free to express it. however, i am free to express my opinion and facts known to me to rebut your opinion
. i'm glad you support our troops though. since we have committed them to the war, the best we can do now is to hope and pray for their safe return. however, you say you want this war to end. don't we all? however, we can't just pull out now, leaving saddam's regime crippled but not destroyed. although it would take him a while to rebuild, his sole goal after rebuilding would be to seek revenge.
in summary, my opinion of saddam and his government:
~
now i'm thirsty. a nice pint of guinness should rectify that.
ah, much better. now, being that it's 2:45AM...
