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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (82418)	3/15/2003 4:29:08 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi KLP; Re: "So, NO, I don't accept your number of 50% of Americans "don't support a war"" I didn't mean to be so precise with figures. I'm not a pollster, and I don't watch polls, but I would guess the figure for supporting a war right now, as opposed to some time in the future, would be well under 50%. A lot of it depends on what question you ask them. Of course about 50% of the public supports the President. Any bozo up there would get close to 50% support for anything, humans are natural herd animals. But when you compare the support for war with Iraq with support for the wars that have been so important to this country, the figures are not high enough to justify the risks. (Afghanistan, by distinction, was essentially riskless for the US.) Re: "I think your 50% is the same 50% that didn't want Bush ..." In this you are [insert adjective phrase here] because I voted for Bush, and so, I believe, did stockman_scott. Re: "How many Anti-Saddam signs do you see there?" If you (or more realistically, an Iraqi expatriate), wants to go kill Saddam, I'll buy you the gun. I'm sure we can find some guys who will pay for the air fare. I'll give you pointers on shooting. I'm a damn fine shot myself. What I don't want is getting the US to do the dirty work. As far as I'm concerned, Iraq is outside our jurisdiction. I'm against a whole shitload of things in the world that I don't favor US military intervention against. I think that the Russians are doing the wrong thing in Chechnya, but I don't think we should walk in there and try to fix it. For years I thought that Britain was wrong in what they did in Northern Ireland, though the last decade or so they fixed their anti-Catholic policies. I don't think the Basque terrorists are doing the right thing in the Pyrrennes, but I'm against sending US troops to fix that. I don't like what's going on in the Phillippines jungle, but I think we should stay out of it. The messes in various countries in Africa sadden me but I don't think our kids should be over there killing people to make it better. Hey, if Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran want to get rid of Saddam, then I'm all for them. I just don't want my country, of which I am a first class patriot, getting involved in a land war in Asia without first getting very strong international support. I believe that Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran would kick Saddam's skinny little ass right off the map without any help from us. But I see no reason why we should bully those countries (other than Kuwait) in order to force them to allow us to do their dirty work. And war is dirty, if necessary. I don't have anything against getting rid of Saddam. For that matter, I don't have anything against knocking over North Korea either; I just don't want to do it right now. Things could change. Back in 1990 I was in favor of defeating Iraq. Saddam could do something stupid in the future and my opinion could change. Here's a clue. *When Bush gets France, Germany and the nations around Iraq to sign up for a war, Bilow will be right there supporting Bush.* This BS about people not wanting war with Iraq being anti-Bush is imbecilic. Are you not aware that not only was I wholeheartedly in favor of the Afghanistan actions, but in fact, within days of 9/11, I was predicting that our troops would be greeted with cheering crowds in Kabul? At that time most of the world's idiots were talking about how the Afghans ate up the British and Russians, and local morons were suggesting that we use nuclear weapons. I'm not a stuck clock who always shows the same time (i.e. "it's not time to go to war"), and neither are those thousand military officers who signed the petition against war with Iraq. -- Carl