By going after Saddam, US/UK are going to do Iraq a favor. Even if we end up making money from the oil and having a better economy due to mroe oil on the market (hence lower prices), then the Iraqi people still win.
There will be a little taste of the free world in the Middle East, which the people of the neighboring countries can envy.
Saddam has chemical weapons. There are thousands of tons of unaccounted materials. If these have been destroyed, even years ago, there will be burial sites containing thousands of toins of waste. I doubt he has a nuclear bomb but he had a nuclear program. Do you think he would restart that program given the chance? Would you like to see Saddam with a few nukes? If you withdraw the US forces in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait then that is what will happen. Would you like the continuing starvation of the poor in Iraq due to sanctions, or remove the sanctions so that Saddam can rebuild his military might with the valuable Iraqi Oil?
You criticise US for going after the oil, but the alternative is that Saddam has it. It isn't his oil, but he will have it anyway and the proceeds will go towards him, not his people. Towards his palaces, his torture regime, his weapons program.
Do you want hundreds of UN inspectors there for evermore? Is that how you like to see your tax dollars spent on their six figure salaries, desert-hardy vehicles, helicoipters, lab support workers and equipment, back office support nnetwork all over the world. That aint cheap but how much of it do you think is funded by UN members such as Libya and Syria who want the inspectors to stay indefinitely?
When almost the entire world was appeasing Hitler, was Britain right or wrong to stand up to him in 1939. Or should they have taken your attitude and said "well he hasn't attacked us yet, Poland's problem is not our problem, let's concentrate on our own problems" and allowed Hitler to get stronger until his strength reached the point where he couldn't be beaten? Perhaps back then UK should have declared war a couple of years earlier when Hitler was building up his strength. Perhaps back then US should have got involved in 1939, instead of waiting until an attack on home soil. If US had thrown their full weight into WW2 in 1939, then maybe Pearl Harbor wouldn't have happened and millions of people wouldn't have died in battle.
Now you want to repeat the same mistake.
Let Bush go in, he can steal the oil for all the Iraqi people could care, they don;'t get the benefit of it today. Let him break OPEC's cartel and reduce the cost of doing business and break the financial strength of the dictators that exchange oil for bullets. Sure Bush makes some stupid statements and gets confused between the bible and the constitution, but on the Iraq issue he is dead right.
And when it is all over, he will be looking pretty good, and the Frances and Germanys of the world will be looking plain dumb. And the world will be a better place. |
