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

To: marcos who wrote (122158)	12/26/2003 7:33:04 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

it was Neo who was trying to glorify pathetic little Iraq into some form worthy of your Great Conquest, i merely point out how absurd is the comparison Pathetic eh? 1 million tonnes of conventional ordnance sitting around Iraq and you consider that pathetic? That's 33% of the conventional ordnance in the US arsenal. It will take us YEARS to destroy all of those weapons, marcos.. YEARS!!! That's not pathetic. Hitler was not much of a threat in 1936 either. The Wermacht consisted of roughly 100,000 men and the German arms industry was utterly inadequate: mazal.org mazal.org historybookshop.com Yet, not more than 3-4 years later, Germany was trouncing over every nation around it. And had the US departing the region, and the UN sanctions lifted, the same could possibly have been the case for Iraq with regard to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia within 5-10 years... After all, face it.. Saddam was in debt up to his @ss with France and Russia.. Thus, like Hitler, he was DESPERATE to pull a rabbit out of his hat and restore his previous domination over the region. And even if he didn't actually invade them, he was a source of external tension and turmoil for those neighboring countries. And this was stifling any possibility for economic and political change in the region so long as he threatened their own regimes. Now the US and coalition partners have changed the dynamic in the region, removing many of the excuses these governments had for not moderating and modernizing their economic and social systems. And at the same time we represent an implicit threat against them, should they fail to change. And btw, long before Bush and Cheney came into office, I recognized the need to overthrow Saddam. I also recognized that Islamic fundamentalism would eventually become a growing threat.. A militant Djinni that would have to be forcibly stuffed back into its bottle. As for Foreign Affairs, the latest and greatest would be the US offer for earthquake assistance. I believe we should make EVERY effort to play a role in assisting the Iranian people, providing them everything possible (and all stamped with the logo, "Gift of the United States"). It's would show that we can offer an olive branch just as easily as we can order an airstrike.. It could prove to be an opportunity.. Hawk