RE: "Saddam was in violation of the terms of a ceasefire agreement"
This item sounds weak. Spend 130,000 troops because someone crosses a line?
It isn't that simple. The previous war had been stopped because Saddam agreed to certain terms. It isn't feasible to do maintain no-fly zones (which required bases in the region that were CAUSING anti-American sentiment, and the resultant terrorism), stand idly by for year after year and watch Saddam starve 5,000 kids to death monthly, and repeatedly have to send carriers and personnel into the region to threaten him. Furthermore, had we not taken him out we would have subsequently had to deal with his sons, both even more brutal than Saddam himself. It was never about "crossing a line".
The USA will probably need to deploy another 150,000 troops. How many students graduate per year from our schools?
I don't know if this is true, but I'm not sure what the relevance of the question would be.
RE: "Saddam ejected the weapons inspectors."
Okay, this would be a valid reason to go to war.
Well, he denied them access, again, required under the terms of the ceasefire ... the UN determined they must leave Iraq since they were unable to do their work. So, he effectively ran them out. Clinton should have restarted the previous war at that point.
But tell me, why wasn't it done prior to 9/11? This smells.
If it "smelled", we'd have done it immediately AFTER 9/11 instead of going after Afghanistan first. The reality is that Saddam was the next logical step in the global war on terrorism. It made good military sense to deal with Afghanistan first.
RE: " didn't PROVE it"
How was he suppose to prove it? I assume by destroying it in front of the inspectors? Which makes sense. Okay, this item is probably a valid reason. But it is unethical to attack a country without explicitly expressing what is wrong (especially given the change in direction by the USA), and then a reasonable period of time to address the issues with the UN. How many days did Bush even give the UN to deal with this? 30 days?
Saddam and the UN had been repeatedly made aware that he had failed to account for some 2,000,000 litres of chemical agent and tons of other WMD and banned materiel. The UN resolutions fully comprehended the fact that this stuff was unaccounted for, and Saddam refused to account for it before he was attacked. He could have come before the UN and said, "Here, we had it, you can come interview the people who destroyed it and view the videotape" or whatever. He refused.
RE: "Saddam was assisting Palestinian terrorists"
USA is assisting Israel, including unbridled support for Israel to kill Palestinians. Using your logic, should Saudi Arabia attack us?
Where's the consistency here?
Excuse me? During the Bush administration Israel has killed Palestinians ONLY in response to TERROR ATTACKS AGAINST INNOCENT ISRAELI CITIZENS. Had the Palestinians chosen peace, they could have had it. Today, their refusal to discontinue terrorist attacks against innocent Israelis has resulted in a situation where Israel MUST kill Palestinians. Every time Palestinians kill innocents in Israel, Israel MUST respond in kind. So long as the Palestinians want to murder innocent Israelis, Israel is fully within their rights to go after the terrorists who are doing it. (THIS, TO ME, IS ONE OF THE MOST BIZARRE POSITIONS OF THE LEFT. IT IS AS THOUGH YOU THINK ISRAEL SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO PROTECT ITSELF. STRANGE.)
One other point on Israel. Every time the Palestinians kill innocent Israelis, Israel MUST react. They should take in more land, kill more terrorists, and generally make life tougher. I, personally, think the Wall is an excellent move on the part of Israel, and will at least allow them a marginal increase in their security.
At this point, I think Arafat needs to be assassinated and Israel needs to continue picking off Hamas leaders. But in the meantime, whenever the Palestinians attack, they must pay a price.
RE: "Support for Palestinian terrorists is support for terrorism, and subjected Saddam to attack."
Fair, but as long as there is a distinction made between Palestinian terrorist and Palestinians that are not terrorists.
Fine. There may be Palestinian civilians killed in the war. But it is inarguable that Israel has targeted terrorists. But in defending themselves, they can hardly be held accountable for collateral deaths. The Palestinians can stop the terrorism, and Israel has shown time and again it is willing to come back to the table.
RE: "if our nation's leadership determines that the best way to avoid a future terrorist attack is to destroy Iraq from top to bottom, it is his duty to level it. Period, end of story."
Okay, this is where I think the less-than-sensitive crowd misses it altogether. I suspect you may not have the sensitivity to understand fully how our attacking Iraqi has inflamed the middle east, and has created a hotbed of a recruiting ground for terrorists. If you realize it is creating a hotbed recruiting ground for terrorists, why do you support attacking Iraq? Explain how this doesn't inflame more into becoming terrorist-wannnabe's.
Frankly, I don't care if they're "inflammed". We all knew, going in, that the threat of terrorism would increase temporarily while the war was underway. It is my belief that once we have installed a democracy in Iraq, we will find the Middle East to be a much less hostile place. It is no surprise to anyone that we're encountering some difficulty in the war. Wars are like that.
Again, this is one of those areas where the Left seems to have a missing analytical ability. It is like when you burn out a hornet's nest. Those that escape the fire are going to be seriously pissed and you'd best be prepared to deal with them. That's what we're having to do now. Once we've killed these pissed hornets, we can deal with the problems. And we'll see, over the ensuing years, Iran become a democracy, more moves by the Saudis toward democratic principles, and perhaps some easing of tensions in Israel. These people will see that they can have freedom, and people who have a choice choose freedom for themselves. |
