He is right, probably. Saddam Hussein's forces have put up a braver fight than anyone expected but there is no way an impoverished state without nuclear weapons can meet a full-scale invasion by the United States. That's why Iraq was chosen.
That statement makes it seems like Bush felt he needed to go to war with some country for political reasons and Iraq was week enough to be a good target. I think that idea is nonsense.
I think the author was saying that Bush went to war with Iraq to support his thesis on the axis of evil and to make his point; not for political reasons. I think he picked Iraq because they were defeatable and we did not have to worry about nukes. He makes good sense. To think otherwise makes no real sense. Saddam is no better or worse than his axis of evil peers.
Iraq was "chosen" because it is run by an aggressive dangerous despot who has violated the cease fire agreement and UN resolutions for over a decade.
He is no worse nor better than the desposts who rule Iran, NKorea, Syria, Burma etc.
It wasn't a case of having to find a country and choose it. The situation with Iraq and Saddam is the reason for the war.
Most people in the world do not believe this because the case was never made.
Also Iraq is not particularly week as far as countries go. Sure it is a lot weaker then the US but there are many countries militarily weaker then Iraq was at the beginning of this war. A lot more are weaker then stronger then pre war Iraq.
Your argument is much more complicated than it needs to be. The most significant fact is that Iraq was considered to be much weaker then the US. In fact, the war is suggesting that Saddam was weaker than we thought.......thank God for us.
If WMD are not found, then this war is even more of a farce
than it already is. Most leaders get into farcical events for usually one of two reasons.......for political expediency or to make a point. In this case, I think its the latter.
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/4200932.htm
I suppose the list of those that are stronger (in no particular order) might be US, USSR, China, UK, France, Germany, Italy, North Korea, South Korea, Iran, India, Pakistan, Israel.
First, I question the numbers of troops Iraq is alleged to have.........350-400k. It sure doesn't look like that many have been deployed.
Secondly, what does the level of armament matter if you don't have commanders who know how to execute a war plan. That seems to be a big problem with Iraq.
Egypt and Syria would have to be considered at least in the neighborhood of Iraq's pre war military strength. Turkey, South Africa, Vietnam have decent military strength. Brazil, Argentina, and Poland all have at least potential strength.
There are a number of countries that are stronger. Burma, Pakistan and NK are just three that come to mind. All three have armies 500k or larger and all three are thought to have nukes or to be close to having them.
In the ME, Syria's military is considered to be far more dangerous than Iraq.....on par with Israel, and it supposedly has chemical weapons:
fas.org
washingtoninstitute.org
Other then those I can't think of any country that is even close to what Iraq had. If we were looking to just take on a week country we could find plenty of other options.
I just gave you a few.
If we wanted to just grab oil, we could have grabbed Kuwait's during a long lunch break.
This is the argument argued by children.......its pretty silly.
A US network fires a veteran reporter in Baghdad, New Zealander Peter Arnett, for stating the obvious on Iraqi television. Our Prime Minister is rebuked by the US Embassy for expressing, as she put it, the "bleedingly obvious".
The fact that everything has not gone 100% perfect is obvious but that is true of every war. Beyond that it wasn't so "bleedingly obvious" but if Arnett had said what he said on an American or British news channel then it would not have been such a big deal. By going on Iraqi TV and saying what he said he, intentionally or inadvertently made himself an arm of Iraqi propaganda effort.
Actually, I didn't understand that paragraph of his.....he's talking about P. Arnett and then suddenly he mentions something said by the Prime Minister of New Zealand. I am unclear what the PM said that was so "bleeding obvious".
ted |
