On 2/21/04 11:40 AM, in article
, "Krztalizer"
wrote:

Woody, by that rationale, we need to sortie our invasion forces immediately to
attack Iran and North Korea at a minimum. We know they have WMD, we know
they'll use them. Ergo, we go to war immediately, without anyone agreeing
with
us.


I didn't say we know that they *will* use them. I said that we know that
Iraq *has* used them. Saddam Hussein had already opened the Pandora's box
on that one. In addition during the 12 years of OSW, he made many threats
against American pilots, had his pilots fly into the NFZ, had his gunners
and SAM operators shooting at Americans and Brits patrolling the skies over
there (using SAM's and AAA placed south of the 33rd parallel in violation of
the demarkation order post-Gulf War).

Not to mention Ansar Al Islam's presence in northeastern Iraq and their
links to terrorism.

No matter how frustrating it is to deal with the UN, we either use them as the
'oversight committee' for the world, or we take on the role of Big Brother for
the rest of humanity. Given that we turned out to be wrong in this case, I
imagine it will only be one or two more such incidents before we have
sanctions
placed upon us, for the very reason that we put them on others.


Of course, I respectfully disagree. We're the USA not the United Nations of
America. If our interests are threatened and we have probable cause to take
military action, we should take it... I realize that we differ on what
constitutes that probable cause.

George Bush declared Saddam would be gone. Two presidential cycles later, his
son took power and completed his father's tasking; WMD was an excuse to give
his 'change of regime' plan some validity.


WMD was only ONE of the offenses in question. The press has picked it up as
the big ticket item because of their propensity to go Woodward and Bernstein
and emphasize controversy in every news story. Next time even your local
media presents a human interest piece look for the ... But... In the middle
of the story where the controversy is revealed.

There's no question really that Saddam HAD WMD and had USED WMD. As I
stated in the previous post the more appropriate questions are where did it
go and when did it go?

As for the well-known and often mentioned chem attack on the Kurdish village -
the CIA released information that the chemicals used did not match the
fingerprint of Iraqi stocks, but did match the gas in Iranian inventory. But
since that CIA report two, three years ago, it seems to have been forgotten
and
Saddam gets the blame. Did he use agents in combat? With surity - but not in
that case that seems to be ritually used to prove Bush's case against him.

I think if Bush had come right out and said, "This turd needs to get flushed
but instead of using a flimsy excuse that 80% of the world will not agree
with,
I am going to finish the job my dad started," folks would have had less
trouble
with his decision to unilaterally invade another country.

v/r
Gordon

I can empathize, but I think that President Bush did, in effect, say that he
was flushin' the turd. Secretary Powell's pre-war presentation to the UN
made precisely the point that Hussein's conduct as well as the potential
possession of WMD was under fire.

I'm behind the Commander in Chief, the Senate, and the Congress on their
decision to go to war in this case. And as I said before--even if we were
incorrect about WMD, there were numerous other good reasons for invading
Iraq--many of which relate to the reasons that we went into the Balkans
under President Clinton.

Thanks for the discussion. We can agree to disagree, but frankly, I'm
terminating. I'd rather discuss Naval Aviation instead of this OT politics
stuff.

--Woody