Should We Attack Iraq?
The news has been recently saturated with soundbites and transcriptions of President Bush’s newly inflammatory speeches regarding Iraq’s refusal to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors under the assumption that they have been manufacturing and stockpiling WOMD (weapons of mass destruction), and he has stated that he will seek Congress’ approval to take military action against Iraq, and, more specifically, to pursue a “regime change”.
The question is, should we attack Iraq, or shouldn’t we?
One one side, I find it very likely that Iraq has continued the manufacture of WOMD, and was involved with the attacks last September 11. President Bush stated that Saddam “has sidestepped, crawfished, wheedled out of any agreement that he had made not to develop weapons of mass destruction.” The current regime has also violated multiple UN directives, including cooperation with the weapons inspections, and in doing so has increased the hardship of the lives of Iraqi citizens. The country’s military is spread thin, busy defending the north against indigenous Kurdish rebels and the border with Syria, the east against Iran-backed Shiite militants, the south against Kuwait, leaving Baghdad defended by a mediocre force of 25,000. Externally, the Iraqi government is rallying for political support not only from Arab and Muslim countries, but from other countries. But internally, the government-controlled media states that the United States will be militarily defeated. Strongholds in both the north and south no-fly zones have electronically targeted coalition planes 34 times since the creation of the zones, resulting in missile strikes and the destruction of radar facilities. Typically, Iraq claims that only civilians have been targeted. Iraq is a dictatorship, a pox on world governments, a poison to its people, a threat to freedom.
On the other hand, North Korea faces a similar fate to Iraq. They hold the technologies of all three major types of WOMD: biological, chemical, and nuclear. Undersecretary of State John Bolton accuses them of being “the world’s foremost peddler of ballistic missile-related equipment, components, materials, and technical expertise” and they have “one of the most robust offensive bioweapons programs on Earth.” North Korea also has rejected proposed visits by international weapons inspectors until the United States complies with a 1994 agreement to build two new reactors incapable of producing weapons-grade material, a project dismally behind schedule. Like Iraq, North Korea puts its own leadership ahead of the populace, John Bolton stating that its “people can starve as long as the leadership is well fed.” I see little in Iraq that could be considered more of a threat than that which is in North Korea. Yet, we do not appear to be imminently at war with North Korea.
Saddam may not be stupid enough to blatantly strike first. Doing so would pre-ordain his death sentence and a massive Western military incursion demolishing Baghdad and much of Iraq, despite their apocryphal insistence of eventual military domination. However, if the United States strikes first, he may deploy internally developed WOMD in retaliation. Anywhere. Both are reason enough for each side to take pause before taking any action. Time will tell whether or not irrefutable evidence surfaces that the Iraqi government was involved in the deadly attack on our homeland. If it is satisfactorily proven to me that the current regime supported the al-Qaeda terrorists in any way, then Iraq has already struck first, and I vote for an immediate invasion.
Cost be dámnëd.
It’s simple…the Arab street is anti US They only understand brut force They are dangerous without womd and absolutely can’t be allowed to distribute this junk to extremists. It’s them or us period. Bye Bye Saddam. Denno
we shouldnt drop the bomb because that would be really ignorant and disrespectful to everyone we should let this country work out there own problems even though they did knock down the twin towers dam báštërdš
all saddam has to do is to get one of his many prisoners. inject them with a small pox verus or anything else. put him on a flight to washington or london and then America would be screwed. a jumbo plane has 500 plus people on bord and all those people will get it they will pass it on to relations adn so on. with in a day so many people will have the virus. so we should stop him before he stops us.
Do we go to war or not? Yes, we should on this one. Saddam can not be trusted and 12 years have proven that. Everyone knows he has chemicle and or biological weapons and will he use them? Sure, he would; he has done it before against his own people and in the Iranian war in which he started all by himself. Listen if you don’t want to support our President FINE but please support all the men and women who are over there defending YOUR FREEDOM and YOUR WAY OF LIFE…
What’s wrong with street justice? Why not let the vermin wipe out the vermin? Why should we waste our time with these guys when we ourselves can’t even get honest people legitimate jobs (see RDL’s words on his ’scouting job’ he had going). We have better things to worry about like taking care of our own. There are easier ways to take care of this trifle situation than an all out war.
I found this today. Quite interesting!
The problem with invading Iraq is quite simply that once you decide to act outside the law, you are no better than those you proclaim to be enemies. Yes Saddam is a nasty peice of work, possibly a threat in supporting terrorism, but if you don’t have any evidence then what do you do? Lets face it, on one hand they are saying Saddam is weak and we can take him out with little if no damage to ourselves, and then we say he is a serious threat ? No evidence at all licking him to Al-Qaeda, that was just a way to justify attacking. Interestingly enough no one talks about the huge impact on the US economy of OPEC’s desire to price oil in Euros instead of US Dollars. That is some heavy heavy šhìt, could seriously screw the US economy, good reason to get in there and take control of the second largest oil fields I would say. Check out. Let’s face it, nothing has changed since the last Gulf was except that the US isn’t supplying the raw materials for WOMD to Saddam any more. Bush is a world-renowned moron, but then no one is suggeting that he is running the country. The whole thing is a farce. UN resolutions? Human rights? Well why aren’t we going after China? Israel havent complied to squat in decades. Check out Amnesty International to see how much of the UNCHR is being broken by the US itself. No justification for this apart from “they are against us, screw ‘em.” If that’s your justification, then you have justified 9/11 as well. Peace.
A small addendum about the reasons to go to war and who benefits and who loses. The profits from the oil in Iraq is to be held in order to pay for the “rebuilding” of Iraq. The contracts for the initial rebuilding were handed out last week. They were only tendered to American companies. They were awarded to a company called Halliburton. Anyone have any idea who runs this company? I’ll tell you: Ðìçk Cheney. Wanna name a major shareholder? I’ll tell ya: George W Bush. Your president is putting US and Bristish soldiers out there to die so he and his cronies can line their pockets. The article was in the Washington Post, BTW, this is not hearsay. Peace.
Fortunately, a few facts are incorrect, at least at this point. Cheney no longer runs the company. And, while Cheney and Bush are still tied financially to Halliburton, the rebuilding contracts have not yet been awarded and may not be awarded solely to US companies. As long as France’s Total Fina Elf isn’t awarded any contracts! - RDL
sorry Richard, you’re right, Cheney was the CEO, now no longer. I think it was Haliburton on which Bush committed the insider dealing, though I’m not one hundred percent. I believe the initial awards are only to American companies because apparently they have to have security clearance to rebuild Iraq !! (Thats a quote from the W Times I think it was). But the financial ties are still there. Michale Moore also spoke about the Bush families large interests in armament firms. War is great for business. As for the French, seriously mate, can you honestly tell me just because they didn’t fall into line with the US demand they dont deserve to enjoy the looting of Baghdad? Actually I guess not, that reward should go to the US. I will make the point again though, that as yet there has been no evidence save for a few blurred pictures of trucks for this incursion. And the US media is seriously being manipulated because they are so worried about public opinion going against them. No free press? The UK media is just as bad. Did they report the 1000-1500 protesters arrested in SF ? I heard they didn’t. I’m curious as to the satisfactory proof of the Al Qaeda connection. I applaud you for this open and frank discussion board even if you dont always agree with me :o)