Attack Iraq?

“By the way, I am not trying to be sexist in any direction. I am not a Femi-Nazi. I mean I like girl stuff and being a girl and all, but I'm not all, "Gooo Team. Kick the a$$ of those men" and stuff.

LOL! Just trying to add a touch of humor to an otherwise heavy thread.”

“The topic of Threat has been brought up. The topic of US public support has been brought up. These two issues are tied. The Bush administration knows this. Don't you think that if they had any real evidence of a terrorist plot from within Iraq, they would find a way to leak this to the media without revealing their sources, or endangering US intelligence? Please.

Newgirl is right. We shouldn't be kiling people unless it is a matter of self-defense. I'll say this again: We are talking about INITIATING a war. We are talking about first strike as policy.

Call me a peacenik if you want to. Call me a liberal anti-american communist bleeding-heart sandbagger if it makes you happy. My points are still valid.”

“I think some of us are discussing it from both a political viewpoint and a human viewpoint.

I don't like war any more than you do, newgirl. People get killed, mangled, and have their homes destroyed. On the other hand, there are times when we are threatened. There are times when we have to stand up and fight, either to keep our country from being overrun as was the strong possibility in World War II or to fight for others.

I cannot think of one rational reason to want to give up one's life other than if there was a threat to our freedom.

And my point was that I don't see that threat materializing from Iraq at this time.”

“Hmmmmmm. Makes you wonder is this really about protecting America, or are there other underlying motives that haven't been brought out into the open. OIL?”

“Or maybe lingering feelings that Daddy didn't do the job right?”

“Gee, Indian, do ya' think?”

“Phaedrus is a long-haired hippie-type pinko fag, I'll bet he's even got a commie flag tacked up on the wall of his garage. He's a snake in the grass, I tell ya guys, he may look dumb but that's just a disguise. He's a mastermind in the ways of espionage. Would you belive this man has gone as far as tearin' Wallace stickers off the bumpers of cars and he voted for George McGovern for President.

j/k ”

“You know, there's also the fact that public support of the presidency is through the roof. There's an election coming up. There's a vague possibility of a threat from Iraq in the future.

All of these things lead me to believe that the real reasons we would invade Iraq have little to do with a "clear and present danger".”

“Lincoln said in his Gettysburg address, that the only thing that made that terrible war worth fighting was so “that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

I don’t think that we are faced with an equivalent threat from Iraq.”

“And the other choice was good?”

“No, I don't think so either.”

“Hey FG, Shouldn't you be watching "Cops" reruns?”

“Cool folks; after you post your latest argument here, check out the Joe Graham thread.”

“Father Goose - Wasn't that from "Alice's Restaurant"?”

“"Uneasy Rider" by Charlie Daniels.”

“Newgirl, If you want to talk "human viewpoint" I'd say as a Nam vet, I've witnessed first hand what happens when we enter a fight with a half-a55ed intension. If we have to do it, then do it big!! No stopping at a parallel (Korea), No sitting at a peace table (Viet Nam) and no pressure from an outside world...just stomp the snot out of them!!”

“by the way guys, good conversation today. Your all to be thanked, no matter what your views are! On a lighter side, remember the old line? FOR SALE, ONE IRAQI RIFLE, ONLY DROPPED ONCE!”

“You know, there's also the fact that public support of the presidency is through the roof. There's an election coming up. There's a vague possibility of a threat from Iraq in the future.

All of these things lead me to believe that the real reasons we would invade Iraq have little to do with a "clear and present danger".

I seriously doubt America will attack before the election. It's too risky for the Bush admin. If Sadam shoots down too many bombers, or all hell breaks loose in the region, then Bush's numbers are going to nosedive.”

“Citori, none of my comments are meant to disrespect military people. I agree w/ you on the half-a$$ed thing. That's why I don't think we should go to war at all.”

“Here is a pretty good interview with Sandra Mackey on salon.com.”

“You crack me up!”

“Except for that Goose moron, there have been some pretty intelligent postings here, very enjoyable.

Do we really want to become a country more like Israel? As newgirl so insightfully mentioned, their methods don't seem to work.”

“Ahh, Gear Slut, my little chickadee, I see the fuse is still burning...if you had $h!t for brains, you couldn't fertilize a daisy.”

“Perhaps you should stick to the beer and boobs topics with BB. You obviously have nothing intelligent to add.”

“I rest my case.”

“Father Goose, the peyote has cleared my mind of the haze I have suffered so long. I have come to realize two things:

1. My toes have a bluish tint in the firelight.

2. Pretty much everything you say is canned, recycled and moronic.

Gear slut, please accept my apologies for this cretin. He is a divot in the fairway of life.”

“Sorry, FUDGEPacker, I didn't realize he was your girlfriend...”

“Everytime Goose posts, he just proves he's nothing but a retard.”

“Father goose, I'd whoop you six ways from wednesday on the trail, off the trail and with the ladies.

You know it. I know it. Saddam Hussein knows it.

Now shut up and get back to your goose-shagging.”

“Brilliant riposte. I am wounded.”

“You are a troll, a non-existant mythical creature. You couldn't beat an egg.”

“Whatsamatter, girls, lose yer water?”

“I'm actually trollin' fer trolls, for cryin' out loud. What am I supposed to use, stink bait?

Gawd, I must be bored. Ah, well, I'm goin' kayakin'. Yeah, that's it. Cool water, hot (half naked) women, my boat...it's a good life, if ya don't tire...”

“US Policy towards Iraq

Senate Foreign Relations Committee

C-SPAN

Sunday, 1 PM Eastern, 10 AM Pacific”

“By Rahul Mahajan, AlterNet

In the run-up to the Gulf War, government officials put forth a bewildering array of reasons for the war, culminating with Secretary of State Baker's fatuous claim that "it's about jobs."

In this impending war, perhaps the earliest and most consistently telegraphed since Cato the Elder's repeated calls for the destruction of Carthage, a similar confusion reigns. The same reflexively secretive administration that didn't want to disclose which companies it met with and for how long when formulating its energy policy has released at least four different plans for achieving "regime change" -- widely-announced "covert" operations; the "Afghan strategy"; "Gulf War lite" and the "Baghdad/inside out option." It has also released numerous reports of generals, military strategists and other insiders who oppose the war, to the point that the American public seriously wonders what's going on.



This confusion has reached such heights that many are beginning to call this a "Wag the Dog" war, an attempt to avoid a Republican disaster in the November elections. While the exact timing may be affected by domestic considerations, the claim that they are the reason for the war itself is implausible when you consider that there has been talk about war on Iraq ever since 9/11, at a time when the world was Bush's oyster. In fact, the war is simply a continuation of the "regime change" policy of over 10 years' standing -- except that in the post-9/11 world the government believes that it can get away with anything by invoking terrorism as a threat.

So what is really going on?

Let's start with what are not the reasons for the war. None of those put forth by the Bush administration hold water.

Shortly after 9/11, there was an attempt to relate Iraq to the attacks. The original claim that Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers, met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague earlier in the year, quickly fell apart, as Czech officials engaged in an array of recantations and re-recantations. There are also allegations, recently resurrected, that Iraq had a terrorist training camp at Salman Pak, where Islamic fundamentalists were trained in how to hijack planes. It's hard to argue against any of this simply because there's so little there there; in fact, for months the administration stopped claiming any connection, unthinkable had there been any concrete evidence. The best current argument for this connection is Donald Rumsfeld's dictum that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

The main reason given for the war, of course, is the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Scott Ritter, formerly one of the most hawkish of the U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq, has stated repeatedly that Iraq is "qualitatively disarmed." Although there's no way to account for every nut and bolt and gallon of biological growth medium in the country, Iraq had (as of December 1998) no functional capacity to develop biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. The common counter-argument is that Iraq could acquire them and the longer we wait the greater the chances of that happening.

Given the widespread credulous acceptance of this argument, it's worth nothing that even the extremely one-sided pro-war panel on the first day of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's hearings on Iraq was unable to produce any reason why Saddam would jeopardize his position by plotting an attack that would surely invite massive retribution. In fact, although he has used weapons of mass destruction before, most notably against the Kurds (at which time he was aided and abetted by the United States), the most plausible scenario in which he would use them again is under threat of American attack.

Beyond that, successive U.S. administrations have done all they could to sabotage arms control in Iraq and worldwide.

First, in December 1998, President Clinton pulled out the weapons inspectors preparatory to the "Desert Fox" bombing campaign -- even though he knew this meant the end of weapons inspections. This is normally reported in the press as the "expulsion" of the weapons inspectors.

Next, in a move that stunned and angered the international community, George W. Bush killed the proposed enforcement and verification mechanism for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention -- in December 2001, after the threat of bioweapons attacks was particularly clear.

Passed in 1972, the convention has over 100 signatories, including Iraq and the United States. Because of the lack of an enforcement mechanism, countries were free to violate it, as did Iraq and the United States -- both have attempted to weaponize anthrax, for example, as we found out when U.S.-developed anthrax killed six Americans in the fall of 2001.

In 1995, those signatories started negotiations to provide enforcement through mutual, intrusive inspections. For six years, the U.S. government threw up constant roadblocks, finally terminating negotiations. The reason? Biological weapons inspections in the United States might imperil the profits of biotech companies. Of course, had the enforcement mechanism passed, it could have been used to press for inspections in Iraq.

Even worse, in March 2002, the United States removed Jose Bustani, head of the Organization to Prevent Chemical Weapons, from office. According to George Monbiot of the Guardian, it was because Bustani's efforts to include Iraq in the Chemical Weapons Convention (subjecting it to chemical weapons inspections) would deprive the United States of a casus belli.

There is consensus by arms control experts that weapons inspections in Iraq were extraordinarily effective in finding and dismantling weapons of mass destruction. Clearly, the administration isn't really concerned about this threat.

Constant protestations in the Senate hearings and elsewhere to the contrary, the administration is also not concerned about democracy in Iraq.

Consider the U.S. reaction to the Iraqi intifada, the mass uprising of Iraqis after the Gulf War, in response to a call by George Bush, Sr., to the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam. In February and March of 1991, at the peak of that rebellion, Saddam's regime was seriously imperiled.

In order to save Saddam's regime, the U.S. military deliberately lifted the existing no-fly zone, allowing Saddam to use his helicopter gunships against the rebels; it seized arms depots so the rebels couldn't arm themselves; and it even allowed the Republican Guards safe passage through its ranks to put down the uprising.

At the time, Richard Haas of the State Department explained, "What we want is Saddam's regime without Saddam." In 1996, on ABC, Brent Scowcroft explained further that the United States did not want a popular democratic movement that overthrew Saddam -- it wanted a palace coup.

When all the official justifications collapse, what is left is the same ugly three-letter word that has always been at the core of U.S. Middle East policy -- oil. It's important to clarify, however, that U.S. policy is neither simply about access to oil, which is how mainstream commentators frame it, nor is it completely dictated by oil companies, as some on the left claim.

Access to oil can be obtained by paying for it, as other countries do. The United States has a different attitude because it is an empire, not merely a nation. On any given day, U.S. troops are in 140 countries around the world, with permanent bases in more than half of those. After two decades of structural adjustment and one of "free trade," the United States has more control over the internal policies of other countries than the elected governments of those countries. Although "globalization" was recently the more visible face of this imperial expansion, it always had a military underpinning -- and currently the military aspect is dominant.

This empire is predicated, like past empires, on political control for the purpose of economic control and resource and surplus extraction. Oil is the world's most important resource, and control of the flow and pricing of oil is a potent source of political power, as well as a significant source of profits. Oil companies, arms companies and general corporate America are all intimately concerned with U.S. Middle East policy.

Iraq nationalized its oil in 1972, taking complete control over its own selling and pricing of oil and over the use of oil revenues. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait put an end to that.

The sanctions imposed after that and maintained to this day have had many effects. In addition to causing the deaths of over 500,000 children under the age of 5 (according to a UNICEF study), sanctions have partially broken Iraqi control of Iraq's oil. Starting with a complete ban on oil sales, they were gradually modified so that now there are no restrictions on sales. Iraq cannot make its own decisions about oil exploration and investment, nor until recently about repair of existing oil production facilities. Most important, all revenues from oil sales are deposited in a bank account in New York administered by the Security Council. Money is disbursed from that account, only with the permission of the U.S., and almost exclusively to foreign corporations.

The sanctions have turned the Iraqi regime permanently against the United States. If sanctions were lifted, the government would make oil exploration deals with French and Russian companies, not American ones. Continuation of the sanctions is a constant political burden for the United States. The Bush administration wants a war to extricate itself from this stalemate, by replacing Saddam with a U.S.-friendly dictator who will make deals with American companies and follow American dictates.

The Afghanistan war was the opening move in a potentially far-reaching gambit. It was not particularly about fighting terrorism -- it was planned before 9/11, and even U.S. government officials have concluded (in a June 16 New York Times article) that it may have made "rooting out" al-Qaeda more, not less, difficult, because of the geographic dispersion caused by the war. It was also not just about a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan, although those plans seem to be going forward. It also got the U.S. military into all seven "stans," including potentially oil-and-gas-rich Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

If Bush gets his Iraq war, given Russia's rapprochement with NATO, there will also be a complete military encirclement of Iran, the other part of the "axis of evil" (North Korea was thrown in for ballast). At that point, Iran will find it increasingly difficult not to accede to U.S. wishes.

ExxonMobil, Shell and other companies are currently negotiating with Saudi Arabia to do natural gas exploration. Although the Saudis say they will never allow foreign corporations to get their hands on crude oil, this is an important beginning.

According to "The New Oil War," an article in the March/April 2002 issue of Foreign Affairs, OPEC countries have not increased their pumping capacity in over 20 years. This is the natural consequence, though the article doesn't say it, of the dual U.S. policy of propping up corrupt feudal elites that use the revenues from oil sales to invest in U.S. and European corporations instead of investing them in their own economies and of "containment" (i.e., targeting for destruction) of those few countries, like Iraq and Iran, that do try to develop their internal economies. Over the next 20 years, world requirements for Middle East oil are expected to double.

The United States seeks nothing less than the establishment of complete control over all significant sources of oil, especially of the Middle East, which holds roughly two thirds of the world's proven reserves. The twin requirements of U.S. imperial control and the constant feeding of an industrial system based on ever-increasing levels of fossil fuel consumption dovetail with the systematic attempts of the U.S. to keep Middle Eastern countries from developing independent economies to set the stage for large-scale re-colonization, through war, "covert" action and economic coercion.

This war is not about minor domestic squabbles between Democrats and Republicans, but about a very ugly New World Order, in which innocents in the Middle East, Central Asia and in the United States pay for the imperial dreams of an increasingly detached American elite.


In other words, your sons get to die so their sons can drive mercedes! Seem like a fair trade? To George Dubya it does!”

“This empire is predicated, like past empires, on political control for the purpose of economic control and resource and surplus extraction.

That's only half the story. In fact, lately the driving force behind the expansion of American influence has not been acquiring new markets or resources, it's been paranoia - i.e. the classic drive to achieve security of the homeland and foreign interests by expanding influence. The Roman Empire was in part expanded for this reason.

The Bush administration wants a war to extricate itself from this stalemate, by replacing Saddam with a U.S.-friendly dictator who will make deals with American companies and follow American dictates.

He's right on this point, but....

It also got the U.S. military into all seven "stans," including potentially oil-and-gas-rich Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

Oil is certainly a factor in the increased presence in those ex-soviet republics, but two other reasons are also major factors. 1) The U.S. needs allies to base its troops in the region to make the War on Terrorism a little more practical. And perhaps more importantly, 2) this is a longer-term strategy of containing China. Consider the Balikitan excercises earlier this spring. Military observers from all these countries, including - most significantly - Mongolia participated, and this paves the way for those countries to host the U.S. in the future, should the situation require it. Think about this. China is the biggest loser since 9/11. It's major ally - Russia - has become firmly pro-western, and tensions have risen dramatically between the two. India is China's competitor/enemy and is becoming more and more friendly to the West. The U.S. now has a military presence in the 'stans', and probably will have in Mongolia in the next decade. Japan has been wanting to assert itself militarily in the region. The U.S. has been strengthening its presence in the SE Asian Island Nations. Also, Australia is accepting more responsibility for regional stability. In other words, China is now surrounded, which IMHO is an excellent development.

The United States seeks nothing less than the establishment of complete control over all significant sources of oil, especially of the Middle East

Um, this may or may not be true, but the focus has been shifted to Africa, where the U.S. and a number of other nations have been working furiously to develop and exploit oil resources there.

This war is not about minor domestic squabbles between Democrats and Republicans, but about a very ugly New World Order, in which innocents in the Middle East, Central Asia and in the United States pay for the imperial dreams of an increasingly detached American elite

This is short-sighted fatuous nonsense.”

“"Naturally the common people don't want war, but after all it is the leaders
who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people
along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament,
or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be
brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell
them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."


Hermann Goering, Germany, 1946”

“Hey, didn't Bush attack Iraq BECAUSE there were no WMD. That way the losses wouldn't be so bad, and the American patriots would feel that they were stamping out WMD by invading. doublespeak.”

“well, according to a recent report by the UN, iraq had no WMD's after '94......so clinton launching all those missles was for....uhhhmmm......oh yeah, to blow up asperin factories.....


kerry, dashel, all of them voted for the resolution with bush using the same intel and now they're all saying they were misled.....wonder if clinton was decieved too when he referring to his missle strikes in iraq; " We don't know if we got a hundred percent of them, we don't know if we got 50%, we don't know if we got 10%, because we couldn't get inspectors in there." {paraphrase)...hmmm, why did he launch them again?”

“Gee Strepdude, maybe Clinton was wrong, too.”

“Ummm, those missle strikes, for what its worth, where in Sudan and Afganistan in '98 in response to the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa.

...however mis-conceived they were.”

“Pitiful, pitiful, pitiful.”

“well then WTF are you raggin bush so hard for? geesh man, you can't have it both ways. forget truth, forget objectivity, screw the whole picture, to hell with reason ...as lons as it makes bushie look bad, you'll use it....


once again you have shown your true colors.....JIHAD BUSH!



JIHAD BUSH ! ! ! !”

“JIHAD MY DICK!”

“Your flag decal won't get you into heaven anymore!”