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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (115647)	9/25/2003 12:10:21 AM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

We invaded Iraq to rid ourselves of the threat from Iraqi WMD -- only there were none. We had no business invading Iraq, any more than Iraq had any business invading Kuwait. Now that we have invaded and occupy the country, people of your "ilk", as you are fond of saying, tell us it does not matter that there were no WMDs and no threat -- we really invaded Iraq for entirely different reasons as part of some grand neocon "scheme" hatched years before 9/11 where we would set up forward military bases in Iraq to threaten yet more countries with "regime change". And why do this? Because you and a handful of likeminded people think it would be great fun to have an American empire. Play god with your own children if you like, but don't send the sons and daughters of other people to Iraq and to other mid-east countries to entertain your fantasies of the American empire. We are not liberators -- we conquered Iraq, and in fact we can't even seem to do that. The price of conquest is steep, and the rate of escalation is beyond the means of even the United States. If you think other countries will foot the bill for your empire -- think again.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (115647)	9/25/2003 3:02:08 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I found a very interesting article that you all should read in order to gain some perspective on the current situation in Iraq, and the media's coverage of it: Message 19342724

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (115647)	9/25/2003 9:16:05 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon; Re the exit strategy to leave Korea. What you're doing is playing word games without a care about our soldier's lives. The fact is that whatever they did 50 years ago in Korea, there have not been US troops steadily killed there since then. That's an "exit strategy" or whatever you want to call it. In Vietnam, there was no exit strategy, as we already occupied the country, and the deaths came on anyway. In Iraq, we face the same problem. We occupy the country, but the deaths keep coming on. That's what "no exit strategy" means, no ground to hold that would mean the end of our troops dying. The objective of an exit strategy is stopping the troop losses, not "solving our foreign policy problems forever". It was the wishful thinking of Bush that foreign policy problems COULD be solved forever that led him into taking the moronic "gamble" in Iraq. Also note that the UN is continuing to pack up: ... On Thursday, the United Nations said it plans to further downsize its international staff in the country. Secretary-General Kofi Annan made the move on the advice of security advisers, spokesman Fred Eckhard said. ... There were just over 300 international U.N. personnel in Baghdad and a similar number in the north around the time of the August attack, Eckhard said. He said 42 U.N. workers were still in Baghdad and 44 were in north Iraq and said "those number can be expected to shrink further in the next few days." "This is not an evacuation, just a further downsizing," he said. ... cnn.com Also, on the "I told you so" line, MSNBC declares the guys who agreed with Bilow to be correct: Revenge of the ex-generals Michael Moran, MSNBC, September 25, 2003 “Windbags of war,” quipped a television critic back in April as cable news airwaves normally filled with slick broadcasters were invaded by graying former generals. With American troops thrusting into Iraq, television networks put these retired officers on retainer to ride shotgun with their anchors. When several of them dared warn that the American war plan spread U.S. forces dangerously thin, the Pentagon quickly launched a broadside that all but accused them of undermining the war effort. Five months later, however, American troops are dying in a guerrilla war, more National Guard and reservists are being mobilized and the Bush team has few allies abroad willing to send their own sons into harm’s way. The “winds of war” appear to have shifted. ... “I argued on the air during the war, that the coalition did not have enough troops to finish the conventional campaign against the Iraqi Army and simultaneously disperse to centers of regional and tribal power to establish the safe and secure environment needed to support reconstruction,” says Gen. Meigs, a retired four star general, former commander U.S. forces in Europe who appeared on MSNBC during the war. “I think that position has been born out by events.” ... msnbc.com When Victory Was Ours MSNBC, September 24, 2003 Nine months ago, Saddam Hussein was contained and Al Qaeda was on the run. But that just wasn’t enough for the Bush administration. No wonder readers are upset. msnbc.com -- Carl