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

To: Brumar89 who wrote (4162)	12/19/2003 8:20:08 AM
From: zonder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7834

The arguments for the war (given by both Bush and Powell) included both WMD's and humanitarian concerns. The main reason Bush et al drummed upon was that Saddam was an imminent threat, had tons of WMDs (locations of which Bush claimed to know), was actively procuring nuclear stuff. That is how he got the Congress to give him powers to wage war. "Poor little Iraqis" was a side line. It was not even a major argument. The American public was scared after 9/11 and they BELIEVED Bush when he said Saddam was a threat to them. He was not. And there was no WMD threat. We know that by now. And other reasons for that matter - such as the support of terrorism. Which is just an allegation until proven beyond reasonable doubt and no such proof has come forward at this point. Bush himself has admitted there is no connection they can find between Saddam and 9/11. They cannot prove no link between Saddam and terrorism. It was a series of fabricated lies that led your country to war. Another person in your place would have been more concerned about THAT than why French and many other nations opposed that war on what increasingly looks like reasonable doubts. Multiple motives are possible and common in all affairs. There is a difference between multiple affairs and throwing up a multitude of half-baked excuses some of which are so completely unsupported by facts that they can be classified as fiction. Re. your analogy of police and criminals, if the police have limited manpower, they would be correct to arrest who they can even if some go free. I've received a speeding ticket on a highway where I was not the only speeder and others escaped. Nothing unfair or hypocritical about it. There would be something very unfair about it if the police ONLY arrested black people. Then it would look very much like they are arrested NOT because they are speeding BUT because of the color of their skin. I've been thinking about the UN. It seems to me it has failed at every thing it has ever tried. I can't think of any conflict between nations where it has done anything that can be called a success. Perhaps because you have not looked well enough, or with an open mind. Take a look at Cyprus and Cambodia. Gaddafi of Libya told the prime minister of Italy that "I will do whatever the Americans want, because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid." You think that is "credibility"??? That is just another proof that Bush is now recognized as a trigger-happy bandit looking for excuses to invade other countries. I could have told you that. You didn't have to ask Gaddafi :-) "Credibility" is something else. It means people actually believing what you say. THIS is credibility: When the Cuban Missile Crisis came about, Kennedy sent Dean Acheson to Paris with photographs of the missiles, telling De Gaulle all about the Soviet installation of missiles in Cuba, and De Gaulle just refused to look at the photographs, saying, "I trust my allies. I trust you and I don't need proof. What you tell is for me good enough." edition.cnn.com That the head of state who thought the US president was so credible was French is very ironic. Now, how credible do you really think Bush is? Who is going to believe him the next time he says a country is dangerous because it has weapons we don't know about but Bush does? Answer: Nobody. France, Germany and Russia refused to forgive any debt until Bush played hardball with them on the contracting issue. Now they've agreed to cooperate. What deal with the US led to their agreeing to "possibly" forgiving debt, we may never know. However, it probably has nothing to do with Bush's "credibility".