Nadine, I have already bought and paid for it!
<//First, given the rapid communications of this period as opposed to the Vietnam era, discontent would mobilize, in organized forms, much more quickly. And, second, if the Bushies fail to be more persuasive in the public forums, then a lot of support will simply not be there, and not be there from the outset.//
In that case, I have a simple prediction: you're wrong. If Bush opponents couldn't mobilize public opinion against the Gulf War, they're certainly not going to be able to do so now. Not only do we have ten more years of Saddam's track record to examine, but Araab terrorists blew up the WTC since then. The American people imo are inclined to give GW Bush a whole lotta leeway to do whatever he thinks is necessary to fix the problem over there. They're not going to ask for a legal case to indict Saddam for 9/11. All the President has to say, is, eight years of feckless Clinton drive-by responses to terrorism brought us 9/11; now we're going after the source of the problem -- Stage II, Iraq. They'll buy it. So will I, for that matter.>
Me too! Saddam Hussein is a malevolent piece of work who knows no limits to his power.
I was against the Vietnam war. This is completely different. This isn't a bunch of Vietnamese doing like Governor Gray and New Zealand and running a communist government. Vietnam was a civil war after the French were defeated [until outsiders joined in again]. There is no civil war in Iraq. Saddam won! He is turning his sights on anyone and everything with a view to creating a greater co-prosperity sphere of power for him to rule.
Iraqis will not be like the Vietnamese, who were defending their country. They will be like Italians under the sway of the Nazis = the first rule of engagement will be to surrender as soon as can decently be done. Offer a new uniform, $500 cash and a better salary and they'll switch sides in a second. The $500 can come from renewed oil exports once the country is set up again.
The power is concentrated at the top of Iraq. The population will be happy to have a new country and I think they would like to have a democratic one. There is a lot of oil there, which can be used to fund a government. Kuwait's oil should be included. Kuwait was an artificial construct with a few absurdly wealthy people with oilfields spread across the border with Iraq.
The Kuwaitis wouldn't like it. I suspect the reason for the creation of Kuwait was that the oil would be coming from a little manageable state at a time when Britain ruled the waves and had fair sway over the oilfields too.
Maybe that's taking things too far, but I do think it's the most reasonable thing to do to resolve the situation.
If I recall rightly, Saddam was in favour of the destruction of the WTC. That's good enough for me.
Bush doesn't need to have a stupid department of "Official Lies and Disinformation". I already distrust media and US government and other information. I think stopping Iraq's oil was a good thing for Bush's Texas Tea buddies so I'm cynical about the motives for the sanctions against Iraq.
But the world isn't perfect and for now it's more important to get rid of the worst imperfection which is the insane superstitious mania of Moslem wackoes to hack off heads. They did it to Stan Shaw, a Kiwi working in Chechnya installing cellphone gear. They pick the most benign people to attack. Well, I don't need a hill of heads to get the message.
They want my head on the hill too.
Therefore, you can take it that New Zealand and I bet a lot of other countries will be supporting the USA in exterminating Saddam Hussein and any other barbarian medieval murderers they find on their travels.
It's a crusade against an axis of evil. I know it's uncool and it's not the language I like, but the foundations are sound, even if the words clash with the jaded cynicism of the modern world. If Moslems come over all twitchy at the word crusade, well, tough luck. I come over all twitchy at the word jihad and Moslems aren't too worried about that word being shoved all over the middle east and acted on by the most barbaric people who obviously have wide support. They don't worry about my delicate sensibilities when their Moslem mates bandy "jihad" around the mosque.
If they want medieval, then I guess we have to deal with medieval. They can load their onagers and polish their daggers and WWI rifles and other medieval tools of mayhem. We'll load our GPS Tomahawks, USS Enterprise, robot planes, cash-flow positive CDMA-equipped, night-scoped fully-capable soldiers with defence of freedom, family, right to life and the pursuit of happiness as the cause. The ideals of Islam versus the ideals of Freedom; a noble crusade indeed. What a ridiculous thing to have to be doing in the 21st century. Plus ca change.
There are 5 billion of us who do not aspire to Moslem madness, repression, cruelty and archaic chimpoid male dominance hierarchies who hack off Jewish heads [or Kiwi heads]. Half the Moslems don't go along with it either [maybe more]. We are not going to live under the threat of mayhem at some random time of terrorist choosing. We will come for them first.
So, all you Iraqi soldiers, get ready to surrender and immediately switch sides to a new, improved, Iraqi army with a well-off country based on civilisation instead of the barrel of Saddam's pistol [or Uday's].
Saddam thought the destruction of WTC was a jolly good show eh? Well, that will have consequences. The whole world has seen enough of Moslem Madness and head hacking.
Mqurice
PS: A few years ago, some Chechen 'freedom fighters' hacked off New Zealander Stan Shaw's head, as well as some Americans' heads. They left them on the side of the road. At the time and even afterwards, many if not most, if not all Americans were in favour of the freedom fighters against the Evil Empire of Russia.
That was absurd and at the time I had been advocating support of Russia against the bloody Chechens and their Moslem supporters. Now, Americans have got the message and they've finally got over the decades-long obsession with USSR [they should have dropped the obsession when Gorby took over - but old habits die hard]. Now they understand that they are on the same side as Putin and Russia.
Also, the Irish Americans were financing murder by the IRA freedom fighters, who, for example, saved the people of Omagh from a lack of freedom. Now Irish Americans understand a bit more closely, thanks to the WTC attack, just what 'freedom fighting' bombings look like up close and personal. It's ugly and evil. I bet there is some rich irony in the rubble of the WTC. At least the donations to the IRA have dropped off. That's one good thing that resulted from the WTC attack. |
