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Politics : Support the French! Viva Democracy! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (4115)	12/17/2003 7:44:29 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7834

First off, I have to protest the carpet bombing phrase. The US did no carpet bombing in Iraq. As for supporting rebel groups, in retrospect one can argue the US should have done this in 1991 when he hadn't had time to rebuild his army from the Gulf War defeat. Even then, it had a high possibility of failure. Nor would this strategy enjoy wide international support. There are plenty of countries which would see it in their interest to aid Saddam in holding on to power. I think we know exactly who those countries are. They're the same ones who opposed the present war. Furthermore, the human cost of an Iraqi civil war would have been immense. Hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides. I have no doubt that if America pursued that avenue, you and all the other critics of America would be angrily protesting the horrible US policy which was destabilizing the middle east and creating such massive casulties. And you'd have more grounds to criticize that policy. Now as for finding out what Saddam wanted, we already know that. He wanted a neo-Babylonian empire. He wanted Kuwait and Khuzistan for starters. Then eastern Saudi Arabia. In other words, all the oil bearing territories in the Gulf region. We know this because he invaded and attempted to annex both Khuzistan and Kuwait. The testimony of other Arab leaders tell of his efforts in the late '80's to enlist Arab allies to invade Saudi Arabia - with the provision that Iraq would get the eastern part. This idea just amounts to wishing Saddam would be reasonable. It'd never happen. In summary, I'm not impressed that either of those ideas are superior to what the US did.