Well, while you guys are all sitting here reading about Liz and why you should stick frostbitten parts in COLD water NOT hot. (Damn, Liz…!).
Mike (aka Cooties) has been offering quite a well thought-out counterpoint to the impending Iraqi invasion… pulling up news links from Google about Bosnian/Yugoslavian arms dealers selling him some prime weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam, that is. Not Mike. I meant to write *Saddam* is getting these weapons. (I’m not sure why, but I feel we can *TRUST* the Brown family with a nuclear missle in their back yard. Just a gut feeling.)
He also reposted his 1996 essay: “Why Saddam must be removed”
Mike knows his stuff… there’s some really good discussion going on in that thread, that I don’t want to see getting lost…. and I think this is definitely one of those things where I think we need to know all of the facts before just jumping in to defend sweet little Saddam.
Ok, well, Saddam Hussein is a douchebag.
We all know that. That was never in question.
You don’t get the name “The Butcher of Baghdad” winning in a bake-off contest.
But my question is… why does the United States have to take out this piece of shit? Why go into a hotspot where an entire region already hates us for our interference and thinks Osama bin Laden is the bee’s knees for his actions against us?
Yes, U.N. Sanctions are a joke. Fine, he’ll probably have at least three nuclear warheads in the next few years… but he’s gonna test at *least ONE* on his own people, so that will leave him with two. Will they have the same hurling power as those piece-o-shit SCUD missles that he tried to lob on us in ’91?????
Sure, he’s a fuck. And few people in the world will miss him.
Just… why us? Why does the U.S. have to do it? That’s all I’m asking.
If I went around to everyone that *MIGHT* do something to my family someday, and simply punched them in the mouth for that reason….
….the tooth fairy would go bankrupt.
… and you would call me a paranoid nitwit.
These are the actions of a President with a tiny pecker, if you ask me.
this whole thing is about the bush family honor, oil, a diversionary tactic, oil, and oil. i’m sitting here remembering the impassioned speechifying after the attacks on DC and NYC, how we were gonna get this Osama bastard, and now? he’s out there gloating and chortling and still every bit the inspiration for psycho lunatics everywhere. there is a massive *worldwide* increase in major terrorist events .. so why focus on one asshole and his oily little piece of real estate? oh right. oil.
so this huge amount of resources will be devoted to this one issue, while so many other things are neglected. so tens of thousands of young people will be sent to their deaths. so the economy will be completely in the toilet and the deficit as bad as it was after the regan/bush era.
and will we get him? did we get him last time?
But kd… don’t you think the fact that Iraq is rich in **OIL ** might have something to do with it??? :0)
The last time, I remember Schwartzkopf (sp?) wanted to go all the way into Bahgdad and arrest Saddam, but the U.N. resolution was simply drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait, and that’s it…. I think this time we *will* get him. Iraq is no match for us (we already know this). We’ll go in, drag him out (just like his daddy did with Noriega), and we’ll forget about the economy, Chandra Levy, and Osama for a while… and all feel good about ourselves!
It’s not about the oil. If all we wanted was oil, hell – we could take out Mexico – an oil rich neighbor – with half the effort.
The U.S is going to take him because we have the capabilities to do it. We are protecting our future by denyin Saddam his.
You know it’s hard for me to make up my mind. Every single one of you has valid points that make perfect sense! No wait a minute!! It’s SATURDAY!!! I don’t have to hurt my head on this shit today! *lol* I’m going to pay scrabble at Yahoo. :op
Seriously though, it does seem to be a rock and hard place situation. I hated the Gulf war and thought it was totally wrong, but now with Osma and Saddam combined, it seems as though we really must do something. I mean Saddam never had the balls to attack us head on before, but what about now? Post 911? It doesn’t look good. :o(
I know, Maria… Michele has a good point about Mexico.
This is why I usually write about sex and cartoons on weekends, I’m sorry. But I gotta say it’s been a hell of a great few days with some awesome discussion.
You know, if it was Reagan that wanted to do this… I probably would have had no problem with it, you know?
I’m not sure I like the idea of contemplating Saddam Hussein’s genitalia. I just thought I’d mention that.
I was watching the 11th congressional district debate on TV the other night.
Kanjorkski (Dem) is in favour of securing a long time steady oil supply from the Middle East. (He’s for the war.)
Barletta (Rep) said it’s more important for us to find long term alternatives to Middle East oil dependence. (But he never actually said he’s against the war, at least not that I heard.)
McLaughlin (Reform) believes we should start immediately in finding alternatives to Middle East oil dependence. (He’s against the war.)
Saddam needs a Lupron Fyxx.
I mean it. 🙂
LMAO!!!! :op
Here’s an interesting article. I warn you though, it is very looooong.
From Lee’s link:
“No Arab leader, however opposed to Saddam Hussein, wants to see Iraq destroyed or another Arab state crushed and humiliated by a Western power.”
And that’s my concern in a nutshell… I don’t know why our current administration *DOESN’T GET THIS*… it’s a totally different world out there, and I think it would be best if we let the Arab world handle these affairs.
Let’s not bullshit ourselves, pushing two buttons, we can make Iraq inhabitable for the next 10,000 years. Saddam is *NEVER* going to match our firepower. But there will never be peace in the Middle East after we start taking over by force. We’ll be proving these radical martyrs that have called us “The Great Satan” right… and there will be more to come.
Let’s go back to kicking the asses of everyone resonsible for 9/11 and leave it at that… not generate more “Holy Warriors” against us.
Somehow, e, not ‘matching our firepower’ hasn’t kept terrorists from killing thousands of Americans. In fact, just this past week, two men kept 200,000 kids out of school and spread fear through D.C. and Virginia with a single high-powered rifle. Imagine if the same thing happened in several states, simultaneously: 10 people, 10 rifles, and hundreds of thousands of people (probably millions) afraid for their lives. The American firepower, much like its nuclear arsenal, is only useful to deter if it’s deployed, or destroy if it’s used. Granted, American firepower was what eventually defeated the USSR, a nation financially incapable of keeping up with the Jones, but it’s unlilkely to affect small groups of fanatics, with billions of dollars, which dollars are, like the fanatics themselves, dispersed throughout the planet.
kd, I remember people saying exactly the same thing, that ‘tens of thousands of soldiers would die’ at the outset of the Gulf War. I don’t understand why that would actually be a fear, given how incredibly unlikely it is.
There something to consider, should this all end up in an actual Gulf War II: the technology used by the US armed forces of 2002 is well beyond anything being used in 1990.
In 1990 a 25-mhz computer was considered a ‘screamer’, and wow! 4 megs of RAM (at $100/meg), and dig those crazy 256-colours, on a drive of what? – 40 megs?
2002: 2.1 ghz, 80 gig drives, millions of colours, ADSL, USB, PDAs, redtooth, bluetooth, firewire, pencams, 64-bit graphics, home networks, instant information…
Despite military budget cuts, it’s unlikely that the DoD sat on its thumbs for the past decade. Remember how stunned we were, watching the missiles punch a hole in the centre of a building with the guidance systems of the day? Now, we have personal GPS systems in our cars and even on watches. What’s been developed of which we’re not even aware?
I don’t relish the idea of a war, but I think its a necessary act; peace does not come easily, and I’d rather we do now to Iraq et al what was done to Germany, Italy and Japan sixty years ago. I think its naive and wishful to believe that these global issues will be resolved by a roundtable discussion and a group hug.
Generally, the same people who are against continued sanctions are also against military actions, yet never offer an alternative. You can not view the events in the middle east through the eyes of an American, because our ‘bargaining table methods’ of resolution simply will not work.
One more thing: if we are going to fear a war of any sort, it should be a war between India and Pakistan. That is far and away more volitile and threatening to global stability than anything the Middle East might offer.
Mike: please refrain from mentioning WWII. It usually marks the end of the sensible part of a discussion. And your remark about ‘a group hug’ is pure retoric.
Now, back to the facts; you seem to expect a lot from new technology on the battlefield. Apparently you haven’t heard about the results of the Millenium Challenge 2002 exercise. In short – the guy playing Saddam won. Big time.
In my experience, sensible discussion is brought to an end when requests are made that certain topics, however relevant, be avoided.
I do expect a lot from new technology in the battlefield, and I should, since there would be no need to develop it otherwise.
I confess to being entirely ignorant of the whole Millennium Challenge 2002 event. I did, though, take the time to read both your link, and a sizeable portion of the US Joint Forces Command website.
‘Now, military leaders need to look at what they learned from the Joint Forces Command-sponsored Millennium Challenge 2002 and implement change…’
I think it’s safe to assume that any analysis would include the Van Riper results, so I don’t understand how his defeat of Blue Force can be seen as negative when it will result in changes to battlefield procudure – which was the rainsoon d’etre of the entire MC02, wasn’t it?
‘raison’, mike, ‘raison’.
Mike: the relevance is in the fact that the lowtech force beat the hightech force. The raison d’etre of MC02 was to test new strategies. They didn’t work. Whether they’ll have learned from it and found solutions for these problems before the war starts (early 2003?) is yet to be seen.