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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (100668)	6/8/2003 3:38:55 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "That's the problem with you folks Bilow. We obtain unexpected access to a TRULY DAMNING document that the Iraqis never meant for UNSCOM to see and you act like it's not important." You provide damning evidence that shows that in 1998 the Iraqis tried to hide WMDs. Nice long post. But the credibility of the Iraqis is not what is being debated in Parliament and Congress right now. Instead, it's the credibility of Bush and Blair. In case this simple situation is too complicated for you to follow, let me repeat it for you: Bush said that Iraq had WMDs, and that was why he was going to wage a war. Blair said that the Iraqis could rain down chemical weapons in 45 minutes. Powell talked about tens of thousands of tons of chemical / biological weapons. If all these guys were telling the truth, then what happened to the weapons? When a liar is caught in the act, he frequently points out another liar in hopes that his lies can be forgotten. That's what you're doing. You're wasting your time. Go look in your local newspaper and read the editorials. Bush is in deep shit. Blair will probably get a vote of no confidence. But ignore all the political realities. Let me talk to you as a military man. In the military, honor is more important than it is in regular life. This is because the military is about the most serious things that happen in life; that is, blood, death, killing, and sacrifice. That's why when Clinton lied about his swage job he became unsuitable as a candidate to lead our military. How could we trust a man who could lie (after swearing to tell the truth), to lead our children to their deaths? To order our children to kill? What Bush did was even worse than Clinton. Clinton lied to make life more convenient for himself, but what Bush did was lie to kill. Honor is about fulfilling your promises. Bush promised that he would wage a war only if Iraq did not disarm. Then Bush swore that Iraq had not disarmed, and he started a war. But now, Bush can't find the weapons that were the excuse for the war. All the high officials that we have captured say that Iraq truly did destroy its WMDs. This is consistent with our observations in the field. Honor is not about shooting people who are trying to surrender. Honor is not about lying to the public in order to obtain their support for a war. Some people say that this was the first "preemptive" war that the US ever fought. Now that the excuse for the preemption, the WMDs, has turned up missing, what do you think future historians are going to say about this? Do you think that when they write the history books they're going to omit that Bush's own CIA disagreed with him over the accuracy of the evidence against Iraq? Hell no! The history books will put the blood of the Iraqis on Bush's hands, and on the hands of those of us who supported him. (I voted for him, but I damn well don't support him now.) This story is not about the accuracy of the Iraqis, or the nature of their government. It is about the trust that once existed between the American people and its leaders. We trust our leaders to be honest with us. In return, we trust them to use up the precious lives of our children, and to destroy the precious lives of people in other countries only in just causes. The Bible tells us not to murder. The Bible is clear that killing in war is not murder, but instead is state sanctioned. So we must make sure that when our state sanctions killing, it does it ethically, morally, and legally. Our Constitution (which our soldiers are sworn to uphold), does not allow our President to declare wars. That right is reserved to the Congress. This is how it has been for 200 years, and how it should remain. *What Bush did was to lie to Congress in order to get them to authorize a war.* You can sit there and pray that the war turns out okay. Go look at the numbers. The numbers of attacks on US troops in May was triple the number in April. Is that the kind of trend you think is good? No, my friend, we're toast. As the Iraqis get more pissed and more effective, we will fill more body bags with the remains of young men and women that we trusted Bush to lead in an honorable manner. But he didn't lead them that way. He led them by lying to Congress. What do you think Congress is going to do to him? Have you ever had anyone lie to you in order to get you to do something? Kind of pissed you off, didn't it? And if that thing turned into a fiasco, that would make it even worse, wouldn't it? The political ramifactions from this are immense. And they haven't even started yet. -- Carl P.S. Remember that "mobile biological weapons laboratory" that Bush claimed was evidence of Iraqi WMDs a few days ago? It appears now that it was a hydrogen generator, just like the Iraqis said it was. The word is that it was made in Britain and bought by Iraq during the Iran / Iraq war.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (100668)	6/8/2003 3:53:27 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 281500

Some interesting links re Iraq and WMD..including from Monterey Institute of International Studies - Iraq Special Collection on Iraq: Biological Weapons Sites [See also Iraq Country Overview] [See also Iraqi BW Agents] nti.org 88888888888888888888 Issues & Analysis Dusty Agents and the Iraqi Chemical Weapons Arsenal Eric Croddy, Senior Research Associate, Chemical & Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program (CBWNP), Center for Nonproliferation Studies October 2002 nti.org 888888888888 Monterey Institute of International Studies - Iraq Overall Index nti.org