Interesting to read the replies back and forth, hope you don't mind me making a comment or two. I like what both DaLanTech and Allen are saying -- you guys offer healthy discussion on a difficult topic. I appreciate that you both are grounded in your views and can have this dialogue.
Like both of you, I can't stand Saddaam and for the sake of his people, want him gone. But I do agree with DaLanTech that this is not the US's war. We are there for one reason, to re-draw the region boundaries and to get a reward (oil) for doing so.
That is where the hype you seek is Allen. When you hear our leadership saying "we want to liberate the Iraqi people" you should cringe. Pure bullshit. Don't get me wrong, when this war is done and Saddam gone, the end result will be the liberation of the Iraqi people -- but that is not the main objective of our president, it's simply a by-product of the effort.
My God, the blue print for this war was written years ago by Reagan cronies who now happen to be part of Bush's cabinet (Wolfowitz, Perle, et el). Nothing here is new. The problem is that you can't liberate a people who don't want to be liberated. Like any other liberating change, it must start from within. This war might be over within the coming weeks, but the regime has been in power for more than one generation, we won't be getting out any time soon. What will that breed for America? It's just more bad foreign policy.
More hype? Who supplied the chemical weapons to Iraq? The US -- that's why we know Saddam has them. We supplied the weapons when he was using them to kill Iranians. So what makes what we did any less criminal than what Saddam did to his own people? We gave them the weapons and trained them in its use. We did the same with Bin Ladan. We did the same with Noriega. We did the same all over South America. And technically, we did the same with McVeigh. All of these people, along with many others we don't know of, were trained by the US and when they turned on us, we cry "monsters!" Yes they were all monsters.
Now try and look at what I've just stated from an outsiders point of view and you'll get a better pictures of why so much of the world has the opinion they do of the US. Why aren't we fighting the tyranny in half a dozen African countries? There are monsters there that are killing their own. Why did it take so long to get involved in the Balkans? Why aren't we stopping the oppression and atrocities taking place in Palestine? And what of the threat in North Korea? NK is the real threat to the US -- they have nukes that CAN reach our shores.
Sorry for the dissertation but this sort of discussion is invigorating. May God bless our troops and bring them home safely.
Respectfully,
Joe.
