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Politics : Attack Iraq? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (1741)	9/28/2002 2:35:17 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 8683

That is a poor analogy. Need to be a little careful when you're allied with pro-fascist elements, don't you? Some little know facts about Lindbergh: csf.colorado.edu >>> Anne Lindbergh postulated that Nazism "is some new, and perhaps even ultimate good, conception of humanity trying to come to birth". Charles Lindbergh received the Service Cross of the Order of the German Eagle, with Star (one of the highest honors of the Nazi Government) for his work in support of Nazism. <<< Germany was infinitely more powerful than Iraq. And, Germany was far more expansionist than Iraq. Not when Hitler gained power it wasn't. Germany was defeated with its economy in ruins (runaway inflation, remember) and had restrictions placed on its armament development. The parallel between Saddam and Hitler is actually pretty good. Saddam just hasn't been left alone long enough. The appeasers of today want to repeat the mistakes of an earlier time. Merely stopping arms sales to Iraq for the past decade has crippled his military force. Arms sales haven't been eliminated over the last decade but the economic sanctions have likely reduced Saddam's military power, though. Funny, I seem to recall you as being imposed to those sanctions though. Maybe you've changed your mind. Your buddy, Len, just got through saying on the ME politics thread that the embargo on Iraq should have been lifted in 1982. Guess you two now disagree on this. A better analogy would be WWI, where Jews played a big role in dragging us into a dispute that was not our concern. Actually it was German sinking of American ships which brought the US into WWI. Antisemites of that time accused Jews of being partial to Germany. On American entry into WWI: essays.cc >>>>World War 1 When the World War I broke out in 1914, with Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia. America’s first reaction was to stay out to conflict. President Wilson, in his speech to the Congress on August 19, 1914 said: Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality. The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name during these days that are to try men’s souls. We must be impartial in thought as well as in action. All American leaders favored neutrality. While the entire European continent was divided into two camps: Germany, Austria, Hungary and Turkey as Central Powers were pitted against the Allied powers: Serbia, Britain, France, Belgium, Italy and Russia. As the war progressed, American public sympathies veered to the Allied side. Under the leadership of J.P. Morgan and Company many banking firms gave huge loans to the Allied powers. By international rules the neutral country could trade with any other neutral nation and also with other ’belligerent’ countries not facing a blockade. The Americans wished to continue trade with both belligerent sides. In the initial stages of the war the British blockade of Germany created problems for the U.S. The British tried to stop all trade between Germany and the rest of the world. They extended their blockade by controlling imports to other neutral countries like Holland, Denmark and Sweden with are geographically close to Germany The Americans protested against the violation of neutral rights though Wilson never put undue pressure on England as no U.S. citizen lost his life due to the blockade. Moreover, all cargo seized was paid for at war. It was the German use of submarines in the war that brought the U.S. in direct confrontation with Germany. The German submarines fired indiscriminately at neutral ships too. The last straw was when the British passenger liner ’Lusitania’ was sunk by German submarines on May 7. It resulted in the loss of 1,200 lives which included 128 Americans. The American public was outraged. President Wilson immediately demanded compensation from Germany in a series of notes to Berlin. The tone of these notes was very crisp and harsh. Ten months after the incident, Germany apologized for the sinking and offered a compensation for the loss. But the U.S. was not satisfied. Wilson wanted to make Germany stop the use of submarines in the war. The Germans refused to comply with this. The tension with Germany resulted in many leaders advocating preparations for a possible war. The President was pressurized to order the enlargement of the army. Also, a 3-year building program for new ships was given the presidential nod. In 1916, Wilson was re-elected as the President of the U.S. Meanwhile, Germany declared that the U-boats would sink all ships: passenger or merchant; belligerent or neutral in the war zone. This angered the President. Three days later, he broke off all diplomatic relations with Germany. America still did not wish to enter the war. However, she took precautions. Wilson ordered all American merchants ships to be armed. On March 18, 1917, Germany sank three more American ships without prior warning. By now, Wilson had realized that without fresh troops and ammunition, the Allies would collapse. This war partly due to the Russian Bolshevik Revolution where Russia signed a peace pact with Germany. This had weakened the Allied camp. So during an extra-ordinary session of the Congress, the President declared war on Germany (1917). <<<<<

To: Thomas M. who wrote (1741)	9/30/2002 7:27:38 AM
From: craig crawford	Respond to of 8683

>> That is a poor analogy << i never intended for the speech to be a rich analogy. i simply said that history repeats itself, and i am saying that in some ways things have not changed. jews still dominate our media outlets and are using their powerful influence to agitate for war. prior to WWII an ally of the US was trying to use propaganda to drag us into war on their side. back then it was the british. now israel wants to drag us into all-out war with the arabs. the bush administration is agitating for war with iraq just as the roosevelt administration was itching to go to war against germany. the other reason i posted the article and thought it bore relevance to the situation today is because i believe the advice given in the speech is still relevant. i believe it is in the best interest of america to stay out of the wars of europe. since much of the middle east was under the domain of the colonial powers and everything was euro-centric back when this advice was bestowed i think it is safe to say that you can include the middle east as an extension of washington and jefferson's advice to stay out of europe's wars. the other similarity that bears mentioning is the fact that people who opposed entry into war were called traitors, nazis, anti-semites, etc. today we see the same insinuations, that if you oppose a war with iraq you are aligning with saddam, you are a traitor, anti-semite, etc. for all these reasons i posted the speech.

To: Thomas M. who wrote (1741)	9/30/2002 5:19:55 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8683

QUESTIONS BUSH DOESN'T WANT TO ANSWER washingtonpost.com washingtonpost.com Unasked Questions By William Raspberry Monday, September 30, 2002; Page A19 Larry Williams, a retired Marine colonel now teaching at George Washington University, has a few questions he'd like to ask his commander in chief. They aren't smart-aleck questions -- this is a serious military man, whose service included stints in Vietnam and Lebanon. And though his questions may seem obvious, I think you'll be struck by how few of them the president has answered -- perhaps, as Williams says, even for himself. Here they are, abridged from his recent open letter to President Bush and elaborated in an interview: What is the actual threat to the United States -- the purpose of war? Chemical and biological weapons, Williams argues, are not weapons of mass destruction. "They are very inefficient and unpredictable and hard to use effectively. Casualty-producing, yes, but not on a large scale." Says Williams: "Even if the Iraqis make a nuclear device -- which also concerns me -- what would they do with it? The Mideast region is not alarmed. Why are we -- thousands of miles away -- alarmed to the degree of war?" How many American lives will we expend to punish Saddam Hussein? Baghdad has nearly 5 million residents. It is reasonable to expect that many would see America not as a liberator but as an invader -- and that many of these would see our military as at least as great a threat as Hussein. "If," says the professor, "one million of them resist an American invasion in street-to-street resistance -- under a local threat of chemical and/or biological weapons -- how many Americans will die?" How long will public support last when hundreds, possibly thousands, of body bags start arriving home? "Desert Storm and Afghanistan make war look so easy, with so few casualties. When support at home wanes, how will you turn back the clock?" How, militarily, do you plan to fight this war? The Army is too "heavy" to get there short of a Desert Storm-style buildup. Air power and advanced technology get you little in the fight to conquer cities. How many Iraqi citizens do you plan to kill in order to bestow democracy? "You can't level cities by bombing, as in World War II. When newspapers and TV broadcasts around the world start to show pictures of Iraqi mothers carrying babies dead from U.S. bombs -- pictures real or staged, it doesn't matter -- the world will be inflamed in anti-American sentiment, and U.S. public support will dissolve." How will you govern a defeated Iraq? "Of course, a military victory is as assured as it was at the outset of Desert Storm. But then, how will you govern a country probably still resisting through guerrilla activity and in which we do not speak the language? Will your military forces be confined to cantonments at night because they do not control the streets of Baghdad?" How does the war against Iraq contribute to winning the war against terrorism? "The origin of the attacks of 9/11 and the preceding chain of attacks against the embassy in Beirut and the Marine barracks in 1983 and other embassies thereafter were in the Arab/Muslim world. Victory in the war against terrorism must necessarily be found in that worldwide presence. How does alienating every facet of that world contribute to victory in the current war on terrorism?" Williams, a career Marine who insists that his thoughts are his and not to be linked to George Washington University, says he learned in Beirut and South Vietnam that his government didn't always have better information than he had -- not because officials lied but because critical details were filtered out as communiques made their way up the chain of command. "That experience," he said, "convinced me that the most senior leadership does not always have the best counsel." He then offers Bush his own bit of counsel: "As president and commander in chief, you clearly have it in your power to move a reluctant nation toward war. But if war is too important to be left to generals, it is also too fraught with unforeseeable catastrophe to be left to the personal whim of one man. Please, sir, ask yourself my questions -- and make certain you have the answers right."